Siano Debuts Ultra-Integrated CMMB Receiver Chip

Monday, July 27th, 2009
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Siano’s SMS1186 leads the CMMB industry by combining best-in-class performance with the entire conditional access flow – all in one chip

BEIJING — Siano Mobile Silicon, a leading global mobile TV chip maker, announced today the launch of the newest product in its leading CMMB TV receiver chip family – the SMS1186. Following in the footsteps of the industry leading SMS1180, launched last year before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the new SMS1186 raises the industry bar once again by being the first chip to offer a complete, high quality, cost effective and secure solution for the new business models of the emerging CMMB market.

The SMS1186 changes the rules of the game completely, by opening up new design and market opportunities to the mobile phone makers, as well as manufacturers of cellular-connected devices such as netbooks and portable navigation devices. In terms of performance, the SMS1186 exhibits an unprecedented sensitivity of -100dBm, as well as extremely high noise immunity. In addition, it includes the secure “root-of-trust” hardware (known as UAM) that adheres to China Mobile’s latest data security requirements. With the combination of performing the CMMB stream real-time descrambling on-chip, the SMS1186 is the most secure and cost effective solution for the CMMB MBBMS network, as the cryptographic operations and keys are not exposed.

According to multiple public sources, China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, which is operating a native Chinese 3G network named TD-SCDMA, combines this 3G offering with a pay-TV service based on the CMMB network. Earlier this year, Lu Dongfeng, vice-president of Datang Telecom Technology, a provider of TD-SCDMA products, said at an industry forum in Chongqing that China plans to have 100 million TD-SCDMA subscribers by the end of 2011.

CMMB is already deployed in 186 major cities in China, with plans to extend the coverage to 300 cities by the end of 2009.

Roy Oren, Siano’s CTO explained: “Siano’s SMS1186 ‘buries’ the entire conditional access flow inside one closed chip – the RF signal is received from the antenna on one end, and outputs a clear (non-encrypted) CMMB bit-stream on the other end. This is unlike competing approaches, which will let the data decryption (descrambling) run on the host CPU or the 3G baseband processor, which makes the system more prone to hacking.

Wei Wang, General Manager of Siano China added: “With the SMS1186, end users that upgrade their terminals from GSM to TD-SCDMA will be able to keep their existing SIM cards by simply placing them in their new terminals, and immediately enjoy advanced TD-SCDMA and CMMB services.”

Alon Ironi, CEO of Siano, summarized: “Siano continues to innovate and lead the CMMB market. With the SMS1186, the entire industry will be able to quickly and easily roll-out new CMMB services and devices to the market, and make the CMMB dream come true. Moreover, what is happening now in China in terms of the cooperation between the broadcast authorities and the leading mobile operator is a role model for the entire mobile TV industry worldwide: regulations, spectrum allocation, infrastructure installment, win-win business models – all these are combined in China for the benefit of the entire echo-system: broadcasters, mobile operators, device makers, and most important – the end users. In the next few months China will show that pay-TV on mobile devices actually can work”.

The SMS1186 is identical in both package and size to its predecessor, the SMS1180, allowing CMMB device makers a smooth transition from free-to-air to Pay-TV CMMB devices, at practically zero design cycle.
The SMS1186 mainly targets mobile phones and small data cards. Another flavor of the SMS1186 (part numbered SMS1188) provided in a slightly larger package, targets motherboards of netbooks, notebooks, and similar devices.

The SMS1186 is already endorsed by several leading mobile phone makers, planning to launch products in the next few months. The SMS1186 Evaluation Kit (EVK) is available to select customers now and in high-volumes during the second half of August 2009.