Minerva and Sigma Designs Announce IPTV Set-Top Box Collaboration

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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Integration between Minerva’s fourth generation client software and Sigma Designs’ IPTV set-top box stack eliminates need for third-party software components. Wistron NeWeb Corporation (Taipei:6285) first to market with cost effective, high-performance set-top box featuring Sigma Designs (NASDAQ:SIGM) SMP8654 processor and Minerva iTVManager client software

ALVISO, CA — Minerva Networks, the leading provider of open solutions for the delivery of television services to IP connected devices, today unveiled enhancements to its client software platform that drastically reduce the effort required to deploy set-top boxes based on Sigma Designs’ next-generation devices.

Minerva and Sigma Designs have been working closely together to integrate their environments so that no third-party software components are needed to build a high-performance set-top box based on the companies’ complementary technologies. The tight integration between Minerva’s client software and Sigma Designs’ devices enables hardware manufactures to minimize development expenses and deliver cost-effective next-generation set-top boxes in a timely fashion.

“We have extended our client software to include critical components that previously had to be supplied by set-top box vendors,” stated Jean-Georges Fritsch, CTO & COO of Minerva Networks. “Close integration between Minerva’s client middleware and Sigma Designs’ set-top box software stack results in higher performance and reliability.”

“In collaboration with Minerva, we have closed the gap between our software environments,” stated Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs. “We expect many equipment manufacturers to take advantage of this new development to bring to market highperformance, cost-effective solutions.”

Wistron NeWeb Corporation (WNC), a leading Taiwanese manufacturer, will be first-to-market with a set-top box featuring the newly integrated solution.

“We are very pleased to be first-to-market with a cost-effective, next-generation IPTV set-top box based on Minerva’s and Sigma Designs’ technologies,” stated Johnson Hsu, Head of Digital Home BU at WNC. “The compelling price and performance benchmark we are setting will help drive the growth of the IPTV market.”

The WNC set-top box will be generally available in the first quarter of 2010.