STMicroelectronics announces Ultra-HDp60 STB SoCs for the China market

Tuesday, March 24th, 2015
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STMicroelectronics Announces and Demonstrates its Ultra-HDp60 STB Chips for the Chinese Market

  • Quad-core SoCs reach lead customers with HEVC 10-bit resolution, VP9, and AVS+

GENEVA — STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, is addressing the Chinese Ultra HDp60 market with its newly revealed quad-core system-on-chip ICs (STiH314/318 and STiH414/418), part of its well-established and accepted Cannes/ Monaco family. Several major equipment OEMs have already selected these SoCs for next-generation Ultra-HD products.

“The Chinese Ultra-HD ecosystem is an important and very dynamic market and ST has developed high-performance, power-efficient, and competitively priced system-on-chips that support key features including AVS+1, China Downloadable CAS2 (DCAS), and TVOS3,” said Philippe Notton, Group Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Product Division, STMicroelectronics. “This new family benefits from the support of a rich 3rd-party ecosystem, and consequently gives ST customers the edge for designing compelling solutions.”

Michel Rahier, President of Connected Home Division at Technicolor, commented: “We share ST’s vision of providing added-value services to end users on top of immersive viewing experiences. We’re seeing operators around the world launching, and preparing to launch, 4K services to consumers. China is a considerable market for 4K, particularly given the importance of global sports content, which benefits so much from the definition and image quality that 4K offers.”

Key performance capabilities of these chipsets enable:

  • Decoding up to Ultra HD HEVC at 60 frames/sec with 10-bit color-depth streams coming from all main video-encoder providers; also decoding AVS+ and VP9 at 60 frames/sec. All these video streams are displayed using the latest-generation HDMi2.0 at 6Gbps;
  • Distribution of Ultra HD video throughout the home via pre-integration of up to 4×4 802.11ac Wi-Fi and MoCA 2.0;
  • Delivering the latest Android L version, optimized with ST’s ARM-based CPU/GPUs, that supports all the features provided by Android TV;
  • Providing all the necessary components to support China-driven TVOS;
  • Supporting live feeds alongside user-friendly features, including fast channel change (FCC) & transcoding, via numerous third-party middlewares;
  • Integrating the latest security IP for advanced Conditional Access (CA) with extended support for China Downloadable CAS (DCAS) and Digital Rights Management (DRM), while also supporting the industry-first multi-TEE4implementation;
  • Forensic watermarking that complies with MovieLabs’ latest requirements and raises the bar in high-value Ultra-HD content protection; and
  • High Dynamic Range (HDR) that delivers darker darks and brighter whites with smooth transitions from highlights to shadows, which contributes to the stunning impact of 4K content.

These quad-core SoCs are software compatible and pin coherent with the other members of the Cannes (STiH3) and Monaco (STiH4) families to allow customers to reuse their development efforts across the entire family and manage a smooth transition between Full HD and Ultra HD installations while leveraging a large ecosystem of middleware and 3rd-party applications.

ST will be highlighting its Cannes/Monaco family in a private suite during China Content Broadcasting Network (CCBN) 2015, and will have other technologies and products on public display at the show (Hall 3, booth #3306).