VIACCESS, 27M Technologies and NEC Electronics reduce time to market of Pay TV set top box designs

Complete low-cost and secure STB solution, based on NEC Electronics’ EMMA2SLx MPEG2 Digital TV processor series

Viaccess, a leader in conditional access for pay television and protection of digital content over broadcast and broadband networks, 27M Technologies, a hardware and software design house expert in the field of STB and DTV, and NEC Electronics, a leading developer and supplier of semiconductor products, announced today the availability of a complete cost optimized manufacturer’s kit based on NEC Electronics’ EMMA2SL and EMMA2SL/P MPEG2 digital TV processors, which drastically reduces the time to market of STBs which incorporate Viaccess CA technology meeting today’s advanced security anti-piracy standards.

Viaccess and 27M aim to increase service operators’ confidence levels and choices by promoting a pre-certified, manufacturing-ready but still customizable STB design. With this approach, the sophisticated and usually time-consuming design tasks and certification process needed to bring a pay TV receiver to mass production are reduced to the minimum.

A complete hardware kit, schematics and material list up to PCB layout, tested to production level, optimized for low cost and reusability and based on NEC Electronics’ low cost EMMA2SLx LSIs.

27M is offering a reference software combination of the 27M DVB Software stack and Viaccess ACS3.0 Conditional Access which has already passed the Viaccess Certification Process.

“Viaccess listened once more to it’s customer’s expectations”, says François Moreau de Saint-Martin, Viaccess CEO. “The partnership set forth creates a brand new approach to the STB business by dramatically shortening the lead time needed to design and bring to the market cost effective and high quality STBs.”

Jan Mårtensson, VP Products and Technology for 27M stated, “The ever increasing need for better time to market and low cost design has to be met with new approaches. With this focused design, STB manufacturers and operators can enjoy a high quality solution, with very short lead time and excellent support through the products whole life time.”

“NEC Electronics has built a formidable reputation, experience and market share in delivering complete digital STB solutions,” stated Daniel Tannière, general manager, Communications and Consumer Business Unit. “This collaboration brings an additional valuable benefit to manufacturers wanting to develop rapidly CA-enabled STBs on NEC Electronics’ EMMA architecture.”