Broadcom Announces Low Cost HD Cable Converter Box SoC with Integrated DVB-C Tuner

Enables Chinese Cable Providers to Cost-Effectively Transition Customers to HD Digital Broadcasting

BEIJING — CCBN 2010 — Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced the industry’s first low cost, high definition (HD) DVB-C digital cable converter box system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution featuring an integrated DVB-C tuner and QAM demodulator, and HD advanced video coding (AVC) support covering MPEG2, VC-1 and China’s audio/video coding standard (AVS). As the momentum to deploy HD programming in China intensifies, the Broadcom® BCM7580 DVB-C HD cable converter box solution enables Chinese cable providers to more cost-effectively offer subscribers HD TV programming and two-way interactive services.

With AVS support, the new BCM7580 SoC solution further supports China’s advanced video decoding format in low cost HD set-top box (STB) platforms. Broadcom will be demonstrating the BCM7580 cable converter box solution at this week’s China Content Broadcasting Network (CCBN) Conference in its booth #3501.

Highlights/Key Facts:

• The Chinese government plans to convert 174 million households to digital programming before 2015, paving the way for the expanded network capacity needed to provide additional HD content and advanced services, according to BDA market research.
  • In July 2009, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) established a model network for the Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB) initiative (a broadcasting network based on digital cable TV and mobile broadcasting technology that is expected to support 200 million subscribers by 2020, according to iSuppli market research).
  • SARFT offered 9 additional full HD channels in September of 2009, increasing the HD channels on China’s mainland to 12. This has paved the way for HD market takeoff in China in terms of content, according to BDA.
  • With a highly integrated, scalable and cost-effective design, the BCM7580 reduces design complexity, size, and overall system costs to enable greater deployment of HD digital cable converter boxes throughout China.
• Broadcom’s BCM7580 is the industry’s first HD digital cable SoC solution to combine an integrated DVB-C radio frequency (RF) tuner, dynamic power management, an MPEG2/AVC/AVS HD decoder, HDMI, Ethernet and USB, connectivity, a smartcard interface, FLASH and DDR2/3 functions.
  • The integrated DVB-C tuner features the latest RF tuner technology that is based on prior generations of Broadcom’s field proven set-top box solutions targeted for China.
  • The integrated HD AVC/AVS support is based on Broadcom’s industry-leading HD decoder technology.
  • The integrated dynamic and very efficient power management controllers are capable of managing and turning off unused system components in real-time.
  • The integrated USB ports support FLASH/HDD drives and digital video recorder (DVR) functions using external hard disks (with time-shift functionality) while also supporting pushed video-on-demand (VoD) services.
  • The integrated Ethernet port supports Chinese cable interactive services, either as the interface to Broadcom’s DOCSIS® modems or to Ethernet Over Cable (EOC) modems.
  • The integrated HDMI and component output supports HD displays.
• The BCM7580 is sampling to set-top box manufacturers.