Set-top boxes drive chipset market

Electronic News, April 8, 1996

Mountain View, Calif.--Both SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM) and Hyundai last week entered new chipsets into the set-top box arena, hoping a ride on the wave of interest generated by Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) technology will garner them a captive audience.

STM, having already shipped five million MPEG-2 decoders by its own estimate, will roll out a five-chip device which integrates set-top box digital and data conversion functions, while Hyundai will unveil the latest member of its HDM8200 SAVi decoder family and a new line of QPSK demodulator.

With expectations of 46 million DBS units on the worldwide market by the end of the decade, Hyundai Electronics America's Digital Media Division will today introduce the HDM8511P CWeST single-IC QPSK demodulator with embedded error correction, capable of receiving incoming digital satellite signals at rates up to 90 megabits/second. The chipset also includes the HDM8212P one-chip MPEG-2 SAVi decoder which Hyundai claims integrates a DVB-compliant descrambler with the systems, audio and video components of the company's earlier generation MPEG-2 decoder.

Targeting the existing set-top and anticipated digital video disc (DVD) and PC markets, Hyundai says its latest integration drives the chipset OEM cost to below $65. Hyundai's CWeST (Cable, Wireless, Satellite and Telecom) chip integrates a variable rate QPSK demodulator, Viterbi, Reed-Solomon error correction and Convolutional De-interleaving, reducing chip count by half.

The SAVi firmware runs on an embedded MicroSparc RISC core processor. The chipset's firmware decodes less frequently occurring MPEG video and audio syntax, enabling the hardware end to address high volume computations. In addition to the features found in Hyundai's first generation SAVi encoder, The HDM8212P includes a DVD-compliant descrambler, 32 PIDS, 8-bit/pixel graphics overlay, NTSC/PAL implementation in 16M DRAM and on-chip PCR recovery and clock generation.

According to Hyundai the chipset eliminates two to four ICs from set-top box design, also reducing engineering design cycles and time-to-market with a more elegant architecture. The HDM8511P will be available in sample quantities later this month, with volume production slated for June. The HDM8212 will be available in sample quantities later in 2Q96, with volume production to follow in 3Q96.

The STM five-chip chipset is comprised of four pre-existing STM ICs and a new link device, which are configured to reduce cost without compromising the OEM's ability to tailor the device to a variety of products. The device is available now for about $75 in volume quantities, according to STM.

The chipset consists of the STV0190 A-to-D converter, STV0196 link IC, ST20TPI programmable transport IC, STI3520A integrated audio/video MPEG-2 decoder and the STV0116 NTSC/PAL digital video encoder. Also available is the STV0117 encoder which adds features for close caption encoding and the Macrovision anti-copy system.