Broadcom Announces DTA 4.0 Cable Solution for Digital TV Conversion

Monday, February 8th, 2010
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Industry’s First DTA SoC Solution to Feature an Integrated Tuner and Switchable Content Protection

DENVER — CableLabs® Winter Conference 2010 — Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced the industry’s first Digital Transport Adapter (DTA) 4.0 system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution that features an integrated tuner and switchable content protection. Designed in an ultra small form factor, the Broadcom® BCM7002 DTA solution supports Comcast’s latest DTA 4.0 specification. This specification paves the way for the expanded network capacity that cable operators require to provide additional HD content and more value added services such as video on demand (VoD) and higher speed DOCSIS® 3.0 data and voice services.

Highlights/Key Facts:

  • Cable operators need to reclaim precious bandwidth in order to provide additional HD content and more value-added services and are looking to deploy DTAs quickly throughout North America. This year, In-Stat market research estimates that there are over 74 million analog TV sets connected with cable coax in the U.S. that may require a DTA at some point to transition to all digital programming.
  • The Broadcom BCM7002 DTA SoC solution supports Comcast’s latest DTA 4.0 specification as well as the DTA requirements for most North American cable operators. In addition, it offers the following features:
    • It is designed in a 65 nanometer (nm) CMOS process to enable the highest level of integration, smallest footprint size and exceeds Energy Star requirements for power consumption, providing very low active and standby power.
    • It is designed for the large installed base of TV sets that still receive analog-only cable broadcasts.
    • It is the industry’s first solution to push the envelope of integration by combining a 1 GHz SCTE-40+ cable tuner that exceeds the SCTE-40 specification and switchable content protection that allows a single device to be used with multiple content protection systems. As a result, one product can be inventoried and deployed on a number of content protection networks, supporting multiple content protection systems, and moved from one network to another without changes.
    • It enables ultra small and unobtrusive DTA 4.0 form factors with a reference design that measures only 3.25″ x 2.25″, enabling cable operators to unobtrusively place DTA devices in cable households with industry-leading functionality and integration.
    • Its high integration reduces the manufacturers overall bill-of-materials (BoM) cost and accelerates the deployment of low cost converter solutions demanded by North American cable operators.
  • The BCM7002 DTA solution is now sampling to set-top box manufacturers.