Broadcom Demonstrates Chip for Cost-Effective HDTV Set-Top Boxes; HDTV/MPEG-2 Video-Graphics System-on-a-Chip Demonstration at Western Cable Show

Business Wire, Dec 16, 1999

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 1999--

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications to and throughout the home and business, will demonstrate the television industry's first 2D/3D video-graphics subsystem that supports both Standard Definition Television (SDTV) and High Definition Television (HDTV) displays for North America, Europe and Japan, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, December 15-17.

Set-top box and television manufacturers now have a cost-effective, integrated, 2D/3D video-graphics platform that allows cable operators to support both SDTV and HDTV programming on the same system.

The new BCM7020 chip is the first Broadcom product to use the HDTV MPEG technology developed by Armedia, Inc. (Armedia was acquired by Broadcom in May 1999 and is now known as Broadcom India Pvt. Ltd.).

The Broadcom(R) BCM7020 High Definition, Video Graphic Subsystem is a high-performance single-chip solution that supports MPEG-2 video, Dolby Digital AC-3 and MPEG audio, 3D graphics, and studio-quality 2D text and graphics for SDTV and HDTV television displays. It can decode multiple video streams simultaneously, enabling new services such as the viewing of multiple camera angles and Picture-In-Picture, and is capable of decoding worldwide analog TV formats for the seamless integration of digital and analog television. The advanced graphics architecture supports multiple windows of text, graphics, and video.

A Unified Memory Architecture in the BCM7020 allows the system to use less memory than other system architectures, which reduces system costs. The level of integration and performance resulting from the BCM7020 provides operators with a very cost-effective design solution for set-top boxes with HDTV support. System designs using the BCM7020 only require an external processor, a network interface device and the desired I/O complement connected via the on-chip PCI bus interface.

"Our solution offers set-top box and television manufacturers a video-graphics backend platform that is HDTV-ready," said Rich Nelson, Broadcom's director of Cable TV. "This will allow manufacturers to standardize on the backend technology, giving them a very cost-effective solution today that can be used for Standard Definition or High Definition TV applications worldwide."

Systems based on Broadcom's video-graphics solution will allow operators to deliver HDTV programming that can be converted to an SDTV display. This saves the operator a significant amount of channel capacity, because now they can deliver a nationally televised program, such as the Super Bowl, in an HDTV format and still be able to support the SDTV viewers on the same channel. Additionally, television viewers can watch HDTV programming without purchasing an expensive HDTV system.

The BCM7020 is currently targeted at the SDTV and HDTV cable TV and satellite set-top box and television markets. The device is compatible with all of Broadcom's front-end receiver chips for cable-TV, satellite, DSL, and wireless applications, enabling it to be designed into virtually any system that supports SDTV and HDTV outputs.

BCM7020 Product Information

The BCM7020 incorporates an MPEG-2 video decoder that supports MP@ML (standard definition), and MP@HL (high definition) video decoding. This versatile video decoder is also capable of decoding multiple video streams simultaneously, enabling the display of tiled images or Picture in Picture. HD and SD output are displayed simultaneously on the analog output interface, giving the consumer the ability to watch HDTV while recording in SDTV. To support HD decode with display on SD television, the video decoder uses a reduced memory mode of operation to cut down on system memory requirements.

The BCM7020 also incorporates a highly advanced MPEG-2 transport engine. This engine is capable of handling up to three external transport stream inputs for supporting advanced set-top box applications by displaying multiple video windows on the television. The transport decoder is capable of demultiplexing multiple streams simultaneously and has 64 advanced section filters. The transport engine supports MPEG-2 and DigiCipher(TM) specifications and can be programmed to support others. The BCM7020 includes an industry standard DVB descrambler for the support of various conditional access algorithms.

The BCM7020 can decode MPEG audio streams as well as Dolby Digital AC3 streams. A PCM audio engine allows for this stream to be mixed with another external input PCM stream and/or a stream delivered under microprocessor control simultaneously. The advanced 2D/3D graphics engine allows studio-quality text and graphics to be displayed on television-based systems. The graphics engine supports many layers of graphics along with the display of multiple video windows, all of which can be anti-aliased and blended together. In addition, the chip incorporates anti-flutter and aspect ratio correction filters that support high quality viewing of Web-based content for applications such as Internet browsing.