[opendtv] ST moving set-top box chip to 65nm

["Albert Manfredi" <bert22306@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting to see this push to move STBs to the bleeding edge, but the real 
reason I copied this is the quote:

"ST lost share with one United States low-end satellite operator; with 
certain low-end customers the company decided not to participate; and in 
free-to-air market, where expectations were not met."

I can't tell what the last part, about the free-to-air market, means. What 
US market STB had any ST components? Who knows? Certainly, they never 
marketed any STB under their own name, and I don't know of any OTA STB from 
last year that wasn't also available the year before that. So what does the 
above refer to, when it says expectations were not met? Maybe they aren't 
talking about STBs at all, but rather the sale of their receivers for 
integrated set OEMs (even though the article is about STBs)?

Another little mystery about ST is their global DTT receiver reference 
design.

http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/bd/11219/std2000.pdf

shows examples of US and Chinese HDTV receivers, and a European SDTV 
receiver. In the US design, they use their own ST 8-VSB demod, identified as 
the STV0370. I can't find anything on this device at their site. Yet info on 
that STD2000 chip was provided in May of this year.

Bert

-------------------------------------
ST moving set-top box chip to 65nm

By Junko Yoshida

GENEVA ? After a sluggish 2005 that marked a dip in its once-dominant share 
of the set-top market, STMicroelectronics is back to "kicking (the 
competition's) butt," according to Christos Lagomichos, vice president, 
general manager of ST's Home Entertainment Group.

According to ST, the company slipped in certain set-top box market segments 
last year. ST lost share with one United States low-end satellite operator; 
with certain low-end customers the company decided not to participate; and 
in free-to-air market, where expectations were not met.

The key to ST's comeback is the industry's first single-chip 
H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2 decoder IC, called STB7100. ST announced the chip more 
than 18 months ago? in Jan. 2005. Broadcom charges that the STB7100 decoder 
required some major debugging. ST's position is that ST is still the only 
company with a single-chip multi-standard decoder IC based on a 90nm process 
technology, a distinction that essentially gives ST a "9 to 12 month lead," 
Lagomichos said.

The next battleground for set-top ICs is quickly shifting to chips made on 
65nm, according to both ST and Broadcom.

ST's Lagomichos said, "Last year, I was criticized for adopting the new 
technology [90 nm process] too early" to push a multi-standard decoder chip 
into the high definition-enabled set-top market. But this year, his 
aggressive strategy is paying off. As ST indicated late last fall, ST, 
together with Sagem Communications, announced the immediate availability of 
the world's first MPEG4 set-top boxes (STBs) based on its single-chip 
STB7100.

In hopes of keeping its head start, ST is moving its set-top chip to 65nm 
process. ST's prototype chip based on the 65nm process will come out this 
summer. Volume production is slated in mid 2007.

But ST's competitors aren't sitting still. While acknowledging that all his 
decoder chips shipping today are based on 0.13 micron CMOS, Brian Sprague, 
Broadcom's vice president of marketing for STB & DTV, broadband 
communication group, said that Broadcom has decided to skip 90nm. "We saw no 
benefit over 0.13 micron, in terms of density or power reduction," he said. 
"As a company, Broadcom is quickly migrating to 65nm," he said.

Broadcom is currently shipping its 2-chip solution, the BCM7030/7411, 
designed to handle H.264/MPEG-2 decoding. The two-chip solution? in volume 
production?has been designed into boxes for EchoStar, DirecTV, B Sky B, Sky 
Italia, Premier and others, according to Sprague. Broadcom's upcoming 
single-chip H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2 solutions, called BCM7401 and 7402, won't be 
in volume production until the second half of this year.

ST's Lagomichos believes ST has an advantage because of the company's dual 
process strategy. Since the process technology used at the Crolles 2 
Alliance? a joint operation among ST, Philips Semiconductors and Freescale? 
and that of TSMC are interchangeable, "we can take advantage of the 
competition between the two," said Lagomichos.

Shift to HD

The introduction of HD content? in cable, satellite, terrestrial and IPTV? 
"has reversed the commoditization trend" of set-tops, said Lagomichos. For 
delivering HD programming without sacrificing channels, service providers 
need H.264. Asked about the most important set-top market trend today, "The 
story is H.264," said Michelle Abraham, principal analyst, converging 
markets & technologies, multimedia at In-Stat.

That shift to HD means higher margins for semiconductor companies. For 
HD-capable satellite, cable and IP set-tops, MPEG-2 decoder chip? at less 
than $10 now? is being replaced by an H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2-capable chip that 
will cost twice as much, said Lagomichos.

Once the industry begins adopting H.264, there is apparently no going back. 
Lagomichos said, "If you are not there today (with multi-standard chip), you 
are out tomorrow."

According to In-Stat, telecom TV worldwide is going to H.264 for both SD and 
HD except in a few fiber-to-the-home cases. "All new satellite HD channels 
being launched in the U.S. and Europe is going to H.264," she said. While 
Abraham believes that so far cable is sticking to MPEG-2 in the United 
States, ST's Lagomichos said both Time Warner and Comcast have just begun 
rolling out H.264-capable boxes.

The North American cable and satellite box markets are expected to be at 9.4 
million and 20 million respectively in 2006, according to In-Stat.

Of the overall set-top market, the global IP market remains only a small 
fraction, however. In-Stat estimated that the IP set-top market worldwide 
will grow from 3 million to about 4.5 million this year.

Lagomichos, however, sees a potential growth spurt for IPTV. He said all 
set-tops available today are Linux-based, except those used by France 
Telecom. France Telecom, which started shipping significant volume since 
late last year, is using an internally developed operating system, he added.

Microsoft's certification on ST's IPTV solution, along with Sigma Design's 
chip, should also help ST move into IPTV deployment by large telco operators 
committed to the Microsoft platform. Thus far, however, Microsoft's big IPTV 
commercial roll-out is not happening? largely because of software delays at 
Microsoft.

All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved

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[opendtv] ST moving set-top box chip to 65nm