Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Zarlink Semiconductor | Subject: ZL10038
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 01 June 2004
Single-chip tuner ready for new wave
satellite TV
The ZL10038 is billed as the industry's first single-chip tuner to fully comply with the new DVB-S2 (Digital Video Broadcast-Satellite 2) international transmission standard.
The ZL10038 is billed as the industry's first single-chip tuner to fully comply with the new DVB-S2 (Digital Video Broadcast-Satellite 2) international transmission standard The ZL10038 tuner is designed for advanced satellite STBs (set-top boxes) delivering high-speed Internet, HDTV (high-definition TV) and other broadband services to consumers
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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For TV broadcasting, DVB-S2 provides 30% more bandwidth than previous satellite standards, allowing operators to broadcast 25 standard definition or six HDTV channels from a conventional 33MHz transponder.
"There is a growing need for sophisticated and affordable set-top boxes that deliver bandwidth-intensive services", said Bob Ferreira, Product Line Director, Consumer Communications, Zarlink Semiconductor.
"Our advanced modulation ZL10038 tuner is a highly integrated, compact chip that is implemented directly on the set-top box motherboard, making it simpler and less costly to use than discrete component approaches".
The market for DVB-S2 devices is expected to grow quickly over the next 24 months, primarily due to North American demand for satellite broadband access and HDTV services.
Global equipment manufacturers are now evaluating the ZL10038 tuner for next-generation STBs.
More than 55% of DVB-S compliant STBs manufactured in China already use Zarlink tuners, according to company research.
The ZL10038 device is a single-chip wideband direct conversion tuner that meets the full DVB-S2 performance requirements by supporting both higher order 8-PSK, and 16-QAM, 16-APSK (amplitude and phase shift keying) modulation schemes.
With alignment-free operation, the tuner provides the necessary RF-to-baseband performance required for DVB-S2 systems.
DVB-S2 receiver designers must currently choose between a lower-specification integrated silicon tuner designed for DVB-S (QPSK) applications, or a more expensive high-performance "can" tuner solution.
However, silicon tuners originally designed for QPSK applications do not deliver the low implementation losses needed to receive 8-PSK and 16-QAM signals in real-life operating environments, which include an RF spectrum crowded with strong unwanted signals, signal impairments caused by adverse weather conditions, and poorly installed equipment.
Zarlink's ZL10038 tuner offers low integrated phase jitter (maximum 2 degrees), low IQ (in-phase/quadrature) imbalance, strong intermodulation performance, and high total signal power handling capability to match the performance of DVB-S2 demodulators and provide a front-end solution operating as close as possible to the theoretical maximum (the "Shannon limit").
Guaranteed tuner performance across the full operating temperature range places the ZL10038 tuner in a class of its own, making it a natural selection for DVB-S2 receivers.
The ZL10038 integrates all major tuner functions, including a selectable RF bypass, programmable baseband filters, and a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) that requires no alignment or recalibration and offers both automatic and manual tuning options.
A "sleep" mode helps STB designers comply with energy-saving initiatives such as Energy Star.
Requiring minimal external components, a compact tuner design based on the ZL10038 device may be implemented on the STB motherboard within an area less than 30 x 20mm.
The ZL10038 tuner is pin and application compatible with Zarlink's QPSK (quaternary phase shift keying) tuner, the ZL10036, allowing designers to implement a single application solution for DVB-S, DSS, and DVB-S2 tuners.
The ZL10038 satellite tuner is in production and priced at US$4.55 in volumes of 1000.
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