European TV consortium formed

Electronic News, April 8, 1996 by Sarah Cohen

Lincoln, Mass.--Eleven European companies and institutions began work recently on a project to develop optimized chipsets for digital terrestrial TV signal reception; also known as DVBIRD, (Digital Video Broadcasting Integrated Receiver Decoder). The initiative has been launched by the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium as part of its ACTS Program (Advanced Communications Technologies and Services) of pre-competitive Research and Technological Development.

The partners in DVBIRD include project leader SGS-Thomson Microelectronics along with CCETT, CNET, Comatlas, Co.Ri.M.Me., Deutsche Thomson Brandt, DLR, Matra Communication, Philips LEP, SELECO, Thomson Multimedia R&D France, with associated partners Politecnico di Torino and Information Technology Centre. The goal of the project is that newly developed chipsets will accelerate the introduction of first-generation receivers and serve as a reference for future consumer products made by European equipment manufacturers.

The European Commission has given the companies a grant of 2,123,000 ECUs (European currency) for the DVBIRD project. That figure is low relative to expenses for the project but Fabio Scalise, Technical Coordinator for DVBIRD noted, "The value of the agreement is not only in terms of money gained by the European community, but in technical knowledge acquired from work distributed among several companies."

Starting from the specification of the Digital Video Broadcasting baseline terrestrial system, or "DVB-T" for short, DVBIRD is expected to last two years and proceed in two phases. In the first phase, all specifications gleaned from an earlier project in which the companies cooperated, RACE dTTb (digital terrestrial television broadcasting) will be gathered, and a suitable hardware architecture for the receiver will be defined. This phase is expected to result in the specification of a first-generation chipset that will be manufactured by semiconductor manufacturing partners and used to build a demonstrator.

The second phase of DVBIRD will define the specifications of a more optimized, second-generation receiver for digital terrestrial TV broadcasting. The aim of this phase is to lead to the specification of ICs that can be used for terrestrial, satellite and cable broadcasting methods.

A possible extension to the project involves the design and protyping of a second chipset and demonstrator, based on the specification of the common satellite/cable/terrestrial receiver defined in the main part of the project. The ICs will be designed and manufactured in Europe using foundry facilities from four of the DVBIRD members--SGS-Thomson in Italy; and Philips, CCETT and CNET in France.