Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Zarlink Semiconductor | Subject: ZL10320/321
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 28 May 2003
Single-chip processor shrinks PVR
designs
Zarlink Semiconductor has launched the industry's first fully integrated processing chips for terrestrial digital TV personal video recorders.
Zarlink Semiconductor has launched the industry's first fully integrated processing chips for terrestrial digital TV PVRs With Zarlink's ZL10320/321 chips, consumer electronics companies can build personal video recorders in boxes about the size of a VHS cassette tape - 60% smaller than today's PVR models
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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PVRs, also known as DVRs (digital video recorders), are a category of digital set-top boxes that allow viewers to simultaneously receive, record to hard disk, and manipulate two digital TV channels.
Popular PVR features include multichannel record and replay, live-broadcast pause and resume, and advanced channel programming.
Zarlink's ZL10320 chip is the first digital TV processor to combine all the core PVR processing functions into one device.
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Using its new processor, Zarlink has produced the industry's smallest PVR reference design, which includes a hard disk drive, memory, RF tuners, power regulators, and other components.
Measuring just 242 x 142 x 20mm, Zarlink's ZLE10302 PVR reference board is very power efficient, consuming just 10 W.
"With our compact, dual-channel PVR processors and reference board, we've set the industry benchmark for integration, and delivered technology that helps our customers succeed with compelling DVB-T products", said Paul Fellows, DTV System-on-a-Chip Product Line Director, Zarlink Semiconductor.
"These dual-channel PVR devices complement the ZL10310/311 single-channel DVB-T processors we unveiled in late 2002, and clearly demonstrate Zarlink's technology roadmap for the DVB-T marketplace".
DVB-T is an ETSI standard for broadcasting digital TV channels that are received via rooftop antennae.
Consumer demand for PVRs and other DVB-T consumer electronics products is being fuelled by global adoption of the standard, and growing numbers of "free-to-air" digital TV channels, particularly in Europe.
These channels - such as Britain's popular new Freeview service - are being rolled out, in part, to support the European Union's 2006 start date for switching off analogue TV transmissions.
Zarlink's ZL10320 delivers, on one piece of silicon, all the core processing functions for DVB-T-compliant PVRs.
It integrates two COFDM (coded orthogonal frequency division multiplex) channel demodulators with a PVR controller, MPEG-2 demultiplexer, audio and video decompression, on-screen display graphics, a high-performance RISC (reduced instruction set computing) central processing unit, and peripheral interfaces.
A robust software development kit based on the industry's open-source, royalty-free Linux platform supports the ZL10320 processor.
The kit, which includes runtime and development environments, speeds time-to-market by enabling fast development cycles.
Software developed with the kit can also be used in applications for other Linux-based consumer products, saving electronics companies time and money.
The ZL10321 dual-channel processor is a pin-compatible enhanced version of the ZL10320 chip.
The ZL10321 processor offers Dolby Digital multichannel audio decoding and Macrovision copy protection for applications requiring Dolby Audio and pay TV services.
The ZL10320/21 processors are in volume production.
The devices are packaged in a 388-ball PBGA (plastic ball grid array) measuring 27 x 27 x 2.56mm.
In 1000-off quantities, the ZL10320 processor is priced at US $44.00, and the ZL10321 chip at US $47.00.
The ZLE10302 reference board is available from Zarlink as an evaluation tool, or as a full design database with schematics, bill of materials, and layout files.
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