Legend Silicon Introduces Diversity Demodulator to Dramatically Improve Reception of Weak and Noisy Television Signals in China

LGS-8G78 Successfully Processes Signals that are Nearly 40 Percent Weaker and Have Over Two Times More Noise

FREMONT, Calif. — Legend Silicon Corporation, a leading technology company delivering semiconductor solutions for the digital terrestrial high definition TV (HDTV) market, today introduced the LGS-8G78, a demodulator designed to significantly improve reception of the digital terrestrial television broadcast (DTTB) signals defined by China’s GB20600-2006 standard. By employing diversity functionality that takes advantage of receiving signals from two antennas, the LGS-8G78 dramatically improves the television reception of a weak or noisy signal and supports high-speed mobility. As a result, products that integrate this demodulator enable users to receive HDTV broadcasts farther from broadcast towers, indoors in dense urban environments, or when traveling in an automobile.

“The rapid proliferation of products with a screen – such as in-car GPS systems, portable DVD players, Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) and advertising in taxis and buses – provides a substantial market opportunity for our customers to bring free high-definition programming to people in China in urban and mobile environments,” said Ben Runyan, vice president of marketing of Legend Silicon. “Our new LGS-8G78 with diversity specifically addresses this market by bringing HDTV programming to users under even the most challenging signal reception conditions.”

In an urban or mobile environment, television signals are often reflected by skyscrapers and vehicles, resulting in a severe degradation of the signal strength relative to noise, thereby causing poor reception. Diversity is a complex and a sophisticated signal processing technique employed to combat this signal degradation and enhance the performance. Diversity functionality typically requires the use of two or more antennas. The LGS-8G78 is the world’s first GB20600-2006 standard demodulator with diversity functionality. When used as a pair in diversity mode, television signals that are nearly 40 percent weaker than normal (in 16-QAM mode) can be received. Additionally, the signal can have more than twice the noise when operating in 16-QAM mode and still be usable. 16-QAM is one of the most common modes deployed in China and is defined in the GB20600-2006 standard.

“The Legend Silicon LGS-8G78 enables us to continue our world leadership in automotive digital receiver technologies by offering improved digital TV reception for next-generation cars sold in China,” said Thomas Adam, development manager at Hirschmann Car Communication GmbH. “Leveraging the LGS-8G78’s diversity functionality, we can provide our customers with superior digital TV, even when the signal is impaired by buildings, trees, obstructions or high speeds.”

The LGS-8G78 – a member of the Legend Silicon LGS-8G70 family of high- performance GB20600-2006 digital television demodulators – is a complete single chip demodulator that integrates many features that are often discrete components in competing solutions. These features include analog to digital converters (ADCs), all memories, a universal serial bus (USB) for PC applications, and a secure digital input/output (SDIO) interface for mobile cellular applications. The package is a 10mm x 10mm 144 pin ball grid array (BGA).

Pricing and availability

The LGS-8G78 is currently sampling. Volume pricing is available upon request.

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