Next-gen demodulators meet emerging & current TV standards

The family also expands Silicon Labs’ terrestrial demodulator portfolio with support for the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard prevalent in Brazil and other Latin America countries. The Si218x family meets the diverse digital TV reception requirements of TV and Set-Top Box (STB) makers, RF Network Interface Module (NIM) suppliers and DVD/Blu-ray recorder manufacturers worldwide.

Silicon Labs’ single-chip Si218x demodulators build on continuous digital demodulation architectural enhancements to support emerging and established standards for terrestrial (DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T), satellite (DVB-S/S2/DSS/S2X) and cable (DVB-C/C2, ITU-T J83 Annex A/B/C) reception. The single-channel Si218x and dual-channel Si218x2 families enable TV and STB manufacturers to simplify complex video front-end designs, and to address combinations of multiple broadcast standards with a single field-proven, low-power and cost-effective demodulator.

For terrestrial broadcast applications, Silicon Labs holds the industry’s highest DVB-T2 demodulator market share in the TV industry. Silicon Labs has embedded its field experience in the terrestrial broadcast market into its 3rd-gen Si218x DVB-T2 demodulators, which now support ISDB-T. Developed to deliver high-quality digital video terrestrial reception, ISDB-T was pioneered in Japan and is deployed in Brazil and 15 other countries in South America, Central America, Africa and Asia.

Since 1997 the Digital TV Laboratory, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo, Brazil, has handled ISDB-T compliance and certification tests in co-operation with the Brazilian Broadcasters Association, the Society for TV Engineers, the Brazilian Communications Ministry and the Brazilian government regulatory agency.

The Si218x family also supports the DVB-S2X extension to the DVB-S2 standard for satellite reception. Demodulators supporting DVB-S2X enable developers to future-proof their TV and STB designs with advanced channel-recovery features and technology to support the upcoming roll-out of 4K Ultra-HDTV reception based on High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) capabilities. Already embedded in many TV SoC devices, HEVC decoding technology, combined with DVB-S2X reception, is becoming a ‘must-have’ feature for the TV market.

The single-channel Si218x demodulators use the same 7x7mm QFN-48 package as Silicon Labs’ previous demodulator family, providing pin-to-pin compatibility, simplifying board design, and minimising cost and research and development. The dual-channel Si218x2 demodulators, also pin compatible in an 8x8mm QFN-68 package, feature an innovative on-chip crossbar architecture that enables system designers to address a wide range of multi-receiver applications with efficient, cost-effective solutions. The Si218x and Si218x2 demodulators share the same API software, enabling customers to expand and adapt their application software to these demodulators and upgrade their TV and STB products to the latest digital video broadcast standards.

Silicon Labs has updated its existing Si216x/6x2 DVB demodulator family to deliver performance enhancements and support the DVB-S2X standard.

“Silicon Labs' ISDB-T demodulator and TV tuner chipset comply with all ABNT NBR 15604:2007Vc2008 specifications with significant margin to all items verified,” said Dr. Gunnar Bedicks, Chief Researcher, Mackenzie Digital TV Laboratory. “The demodulator behaved extremely well in difficult reception test cases with outstanding overall performance, in particular against multipath with pre- and post-echoes and also against Doppler effects.”

“As the market leader in advanced digital TV demodulators, we are dedicated to helping our customers worldwide keep pace with the continuous evolution of digital video broadcast standards,” said James Stansberry, Senior Vice President and General Manager, IoT and Broadcast products, Silicon Labs. “Our Si218x demodulators support the latest DVB-S2X satellite standard and the ISDB-T terrestrial standard for Latin America, helping TV and STB manufacturers future-proof their designs and easily expand into different markets.”

Samples and production quantities of the Si218x and Si218x2 are available now, supported by a comprehensive set of evaluation boards. Reference design schematics, layout Gerber files and sample driver source code are also available to help expedite time to market while reducing development costs.