Cyfrowy Polsat Selects MaxLinear MxL601 for Hybrid DVB-T / IPTV Set-Top Box

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
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The largest Polish pay TV operator is building a hybrid STB to debut nationwide mobile TV service in DVB-T technology; Cyfrowy Polsat selects MxL601 for superior performance and cost-effectiveness

CARLSBAD, Calif. — MaxLinear Inc. (NYSE: MXL), a leading provider of integrated radio frequency (RF) and mixed-signal integrated circuits for broadband communications applications, today announced that Cyfrowy Polsat (Warsaw: CPS), the largest Polish media group and satellite TV platform (DTH), has selected its MxL601 global TV tuner for use in its own T-HD 1000 set-top box (STB) that is the heart of a new nationwide hybrid DVB-T / IPTV service.

“The choice of MxL601 will enable Cyfrowy Polsat to deliver the high signal quality that its customers also expect.”
Cyfrowy Polsat is working to develop the new mobile TV service in DVB-T technology, which will offer a package of pay TV and radio channels and give access to free-to-air DVB-T channels and to Internet content from the company’s ipla movie-on-demand service. The T-HD 1000 with MxL601 is one of the STB devices enabling reception of Cyfrowy Polsat’s new service – which will be delivered both at home and out of it.

“There is a growing group of television consumers in Poland that prefer a combination of local content available on traditional channels and Internet-based video on demand like our ipla service. We are eager to launch this new service aimed at this audience, with the added value of mobility,” said Dariusz Dzialkowski, Chief Technology Officer at Cyfrowy Polsat. “Working with MaxLinear means we can develop the STB for this service with the performance and low power consumption that are important to our customers.”

“Cyfrowy Polsat’s new service is innovative in the way it combines DVB-T broadcast networks with IPTV to give viewers the content choices they demand,” said Yves Rasse, Sr. Director of MaxLinear Consumer Product Line. “The choice of MxL601 will enable Cyfrowy Polsat to deliver the high signal quality that its customers also expect.”

He added: “The breakthrough performance of the chip also makes the overall solution more cost-effective because it offers superior blocking of a wide range of competing wireless signals without the need of external filters that drive up cost and take board space.”

MaxLinear’s MxL601 is a 65-nm CMOS global TV tuner that sets a new benchmark for overall reception performance, silicon integration and power consumption.

Technical Details

Dubbed the “super radio” because of its breakthroughs in silicon tuner technology, the MxL601 enables a 50 percent reduction in footprint compared to existing solutions, while meeting the exacting requirements of global television applications. The MxL601 delivers an exceptional noise figure of 3.5 decibels (dB).

The MxL601 is software configurable for receiving any global television standard without the need for any hardware modifications, which enables manufacturers to design a single tuner front-end for all global TV markets. Supported standards include: PAL, SECAM, NTSC, DVB-T/T2, ISDB-T, ISDB-Tmm, ATSC, ATSC M/H, DTMB, ITU-T J.83 Annex A (DVB-C) / B (US Cable) / C (Japan); DOCSIS and EURODOCSIS.

The MxL601 is based on MaxLinear’s 65-nm CMOS advanced radio technology that has been in volume production since late 2011, and is available in an ultra-small form factor 4×4 24-pin QFN package.