Trident Set-Top Box SoCs Selected for China's First NGB Trial Deployments

Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Trident Micro logo

Trident CEO to Host a Press Conference at This Week’s CCBN Show to Highlight the Multimedia Experiences that Trident is Bringing to China

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Trident Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRID), a leading provider of set-top box and TV semiconductor solutions, today announced that its set-top box system-on-chips (SoCs) are powering one of the first trial deployments of Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB) in China. This announcement reaffirms Trident’s commitment to bring the best multimedia experiences to the China region and highlights how its leading set-top box SoCs are NGB ready today with the right specifications, core technology, cost structure, and support for the Android operating system.

“Trident has established NGB market leadership by focusing on what it does best – innovative SoC development combined with the software, systems expertise and partnerships needed to deliver a complete solution,” said Philippe Geyres, CEO of Trident. “We worked closely with SARFT, local operators and set-top box manufacturers to ensure our products met all the NGB specifications, and we now look forward to introducing this winning platform throughout the region and rapidly converting trials into volume deployments.”

Trident will be hosting a press conference at this week’s China Content Broadcasting Network (CCBN) show in Beijing and will also be demonstrating its NGB-ready solutions in its CCBN booth #1B601.

What is NGB?

NGB is a government-funded initiative to bring high definition, bidirectional and interactive capabilities throughout China. Services to be offered include interactive TV (video on demand, pay-per view), videophone, personal video recorder (PVR), streaming music and video, and broadcast TV among existing services in today’s telecom and Internet markets. Given the number of households in China, NGB will provide enormous revenue/growth opportunities for local operators, manufacturers, content providers, etc.

Trident is NGB-Ready Today

Trident has created the most comprehensive platform to develop open and multimedia-reach set-top boxes that meet the requirements of NGB. At the heart of Trident’s complete solution is its industry-first 45nm broadcast integrated Apollo/Shiner SoC family, the PNX8400, which includes all the major building blocks needed to develop NGB solutions today. A few of the key highlights of the Apollo/Shiner family include the following:

  • Superior video and audio quality – with many patented core technologies, the Apollo/Shiner family delivers the unprecedented 1080P HD picture quality and the most-realistic surround sound effect to consumers. The multi-format HD PIP function enables two HD streams decoding and viewing at the same time.
  • Best web browsing – Trident has partnered with ARM to include the powerful A9 cortext core into its PNX8400 family. Key software elements include: Adobe™ Flash® Player 10.1 from Adobe Systems, Qt4.7/WebKit, HTML5, DTCP-IP, and DLNA Certified® 1.5 Media Renderer.
  • Advanced 3D GPU through the PowerVR core, which delivers a proven 3D architecture with full OpenGL ES 2.0 compliance.
  • Most flexible content decoding through the Trimedia processor to ensure STB compatibility with on-line VOD & OTT services.
  • Best STB 3DTV Processing for the best overall consumer experience.
  • Most Efficient Power management that includes the most efficient standby mode.
  • Support for Google Android Operating System – Trident was one of the first companies to bring Android to the set-top box platform, which could bring the whole new user experience in the future.