Entropic Communications and STMicroelectronics Partner to Deliver Complete DVB-C Set-Top Box Design

Entropic's RF4800 Silicon Tuner Integrated With STMicroelectronics' QAMi5107 MPEG/ Demodulator Enable Highly Compact Receiver Designs

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 2, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Entropic Communications, Inc., a leading provider of systems solutions to enable connected home entertainment, in conjunction with STMicroelectronics, the world's leading supplier of silicon chips for set-top boxes (STBs), today announced the availability of a complete hardware and software reference design for digital video broadcasting over cable (DVB-C) STB applications. Entropic has certified full firmware interoperability of the RF4800 tuner integrated circuit (IC) with ST's newest integrated video demodulator and MPEG decoder, the QAMi5107. Ideal for motherboard designs in STB applications, Entropic's RF4800 and STMicroelectronics' QAMi5107, enable more compact receiver designs than existing solutions.

Accelerating Customers' Time-to-Market

The RF4800 DVB-C silicon tuner with patented adaptive tune technology has proven performance advantages in the emerging digital cable DVB-C networks where excessive interference from legacy analog signals and terrestrial signal leakage into the cable can cause major performance limitations that can degrade picture quality. Combining the RF4800 with the QAMi5107 on a single proven reference design platform will allow customers to accelerate time-to-market by significantly reducing the hardware and software development time.

"Our ability to deliver this turnkey solution for a full DVB-C receiver with ST's latest MPEG/demodulator is quite significant not only for Entropic and ST, but for our customers. This reference design will significantly reduce the demand on our customers' engineering resources and allows them to accelerate their time to market," commented John Graham, VP of Marketing at Entropic Communications. "The addition of the RF4800 and QAMi5107 DVB-C reference design will add to our proven track record of successful collaborations with ST by delivering complete solutions to the emerging DVB-C market."

Delivering Dramatic Performance Improvements

"The reference design deploys our enhanced QAMi5107 high-performance QAM Demodulator and MPEG decoder to deliver dramatic performance improvements and big cost advantages for set-top box manufacturers," said Stefano Groppetti, Director of Cable Business in ST's Home Video Division. "The combination of our leading-edge QAMi5107 with Entropic's turner is a very strong offering in the deployment of all-digital solutions for the DVB-C market where the analog-to-digital switchover is rapidly gathering momentum."

Featuring Entropic's AdaptiveTune technology, the RF4800 contains all front-end functions and requires no external SAW filters or amplifiers. In addition, the AdaptiveTune feature allows key characteristics of the tuner to be programmed via software to optimize front-end performance for different environmental conditions.

The QAMi5107 is an integrated low-power, ultra-compact DVB-C single-chip MPEG/Demodulator that demodulates IF or baseband differential signals and performs MPEG-2 block processing of Qudrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) carriers. The QAMi5107 is fully compliant with the DVB-C specification (EN 300 429 and NorDig Unified specification. NorDig Compliance testing has been completed and the companies are offering full production-ready reference designs.

Availability

The QAMi5107+ RF4800 reference design is available through STMicroelectronics and comes with all of the hardware, software and layout files needed to implement the DVB-C receiver design.

About Entropic Communications

Entropic Communications, Inc. is a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets systems solutions to enable connected home entertainment. The company's technologies significantly change the way high-definition television-quality video and other multimedia content such as movies, music, games and photos are brought into and delivered throughout the home. For more information, please visit www.entropic.com.

The Entropic Communications logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=4255



CONTACT: Entropic Communications
Susan Huberman, VP, Corporate Communications
858/625-3200, ext. 348
shuberman@entropic.com

GlobalFluency
Meggan Powers
650/433-4145
mpowers@globalfluency.com