Horizon Semiconductors rolls out single chip native 1080/60p high definition dual channel decoder SoCs for next-generation Cable, Satellite & IPTV set-top boxes

Monday, October 29th, 2007

HERZLIYA, Israel — Horizon Semiconductors, a leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable secure video and audio compression & transmission for the consumer electronics and home entertainment markets, announced the immediate availability of industry’s first single chip multi-standard native 1080/60p high definition decoders for triple-play/quad-play Cable, Satellite and IPTV Set-Top Box, Digital Video Recorders and Home Media Centers.

The Hz4220 cable/IPTV & Hz3220 satellite SoCs integrate real time dual channel multi-standard native 1080/60p high definition decoder, audio processor, application CPU, 2D/3D graphics accelerator, display & de-interlacer processor, transport processor and a security processor into a single chip. Furthermore, the Hz4220 and Hz3220 embed a variety of advanced interfaces and security features targeted to meet the specific design characteristics of the Cable/IPTV and Satellite markets respectively. These highly integrated SoCs enable end-users to substantially benefit from the lower cost, smaller size and improved features, as well as superior viewing experience of next-generation STBs and media players. Horizon’s Hz4220 & Hz3220 are provided with comprehensive software stacks and reference hardware platforms designed to significantly accelerate OEM/ODM development cycle.

“The conventional wisdom is that Cable, Satellite & IPTV broadcast will eventually adopt the highest video standard available, and will thus evolve to 1080/60p transmission”, said Amir Morad, President and CEO of Horizon Semiconductors. “The release of Hz4220 & Hz3220 low-cost native 1080/60p decoder SoC are kicking-off this transition, which will be further leveraged & complemented by our location-free-TV transcoding products & technologies soon to be deployed in several systems throughout the world.”

“We believe native 1080/60p decoding and transcoding technologies will be major features in the evolution of location-free triple/quad-play set-top box solutions,” said IdaRose Sylvester, Senior Industry Analyst for IDC. “These features will enable broadband operators worldwide to provide the very best integrated video, voice and high-speed data services anywhere, and semiconductor companies who enable these challenging features will be instrumental in making this market happen.”

Product Information

The Hz4220 and Hz3220 are designed with the highest level of integration, embedding a variety of cutting edge technologies such as:

  • Powerful multi stream decoder engine, supporting real-time dual channel HD decoding or 12 channel SD decoding simultaneously, using leading compression standards including: H.264 (AVC) Main and High Profile up to Level 4.2, VC-1 (SMPTE 421M) Advanced Profile @ Level 3, DV, HDV, MPEG-2 at resolutions of up to 1080/60p (1920×1080, 60 frames/sec).
  • Advanced display processor allowing multiple plane true color blending, sophisticated polyphase scaler supporting flexible video resizing, motion adaptive high-definition de-interlacing, advanced motion-compensated spatio-temporal noise reduction, as well as DTV picture enhancements providing the best playback performance.
  • High definition (1920×1080), powerful 2D and 3D graphics accelerator, supporting popular standards such as X Window System and OpenGL.
  • Multi-channel multi-format audio decoder, and special audio effects processor, supporting leading standards such as: MPEG-1 Layer I, II & III (MP3), Dolby® Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, AAC/AAC-LC/AAC-HE, DTS, DTS-HD (DTS++), WMA and WMA Pro.
  • High performance application CPU with MMU dedicated exclusively for running standard operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows-CE as well as enabling customer’s specific tasks, in addition to a dedicated co-processor designed to materially offload the main application CPU.
  • Multi-stream high bandwidth transport processor, designed to process up to 7 streams concurrently as well as processing program/transport streams from HDD or IP network.
  • Wide variety of advanced connectivity and peripherals including 10/100/1G Ethernet, USB 2.0, IDE/ATAPI, SMPTE-292, Flash, I2C, SPI/SSI, UART and others.
  • DVI/HDMI output with integrated HDCP security.
  • IEEE 1394 (FireWire) with integrated DTCP security (on Hz4220).
  • IR & UHF Remote control processor supporting IR/UHF keyboards and IR-Blaster.
    OpenCable™ ready with integrated CableCard™/DVB-CI interface and SCARD/MCARD support (on Hz4220).
  • World-class content security processor with embedded secure OTP memory, enabling end-to-end security and digital rights management of media content, in strict compliance with numerous CA/DRM schemes commonly used in the cable/IPTV (Hz4220) and satellite (Hz3220) marketplace. In addition, Hz4220 supports requirements of Cable TV downloadable conditional access system (DCAS), enabling DCAS-based leased and retail “digital cable ready” set-top boxes.
  • Powerful, easy to use API, with the ability to accelerate and off-load host application code.

“Horizon’s Hz4220 & Hz3220 dual channel decoders offer the highest level of functionality in a single chip for the cable, satellite & IPTV set-top box market today,” said Leonid Yavits, Chief Technology Officer of Horizon Semiconductors. “These new solutions enable service providers to offer the most advanced features available to their subscribers, while ensuring end-to-end content security and, with the addition of 1080/60p decoding, the ultimate viewing experience.”

To facilitate faster time-to-market, Horizon is also announcing the immediate availability of the HzR4220/HzR3220 reference design kits. These fully operational cable/satellite set-top-box products include PCB schematics, full software design kit and documentation.