January 21, 2013, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company providing a wide range of electronic applications and the No. 1 company in the digital TV and set-top box IC sector, announced two new SoC products for TV equipment including HD terrestrial, cable, IP, OTT, and satellite.

The new STiH253 full-featured digital video broadcast device integrates a DVB-T2 demodulator into a high-density terrestrial set-top box and adds to ST's family of interactive DVR-enabled solutions. Another addition to the set-top box portfolio is the STiH271EL, which will perfectly satisfy the needs of the price-sensitive market seeking basic zapper functionality without compromising video performance.

The core of ST's set-top box SoC IC family is an enhanced processing engine. It features integrated on-chip capabilities to increase efficiency during final product design. This robust processing engine enables low-power consumption while maintaining low memory usage. These set-top box SoC products support HD broadcast and multimedia codecs, the full range of hybrid and IP standards, integrated middleware stacks from major vendors, and the latest security and content protection standards.

The product line is expanding its scope to include HD zappers, PVRs, Internet Protocol (IP) clients supporting Connected TV Services (IPTV), dual-HD boxes, information channels, OTT video, games, Catch-Up TV, and social networking. These new products further diversify ST's product lineup, while existing products include the comprehensive IP STiH207, the STiH273 for HD cable/terrestrial TV, and the STiH237 and STiH239 for HD satellite TV. Since all products are compatible in terms of pins and software, OEMs will be able to improve the quality of optimized designs tailored to the diverse needs of customers and operators.

Huang Wei, Director of Sales at JiuZhou, a major Chinese set-top box manufacturer, stated, “Compatibility with the ST set-top box SoC family is JiuZhou’s core competitive advantage. This integrated model design shortened the development cycle, enabling us to target both the hybrid satellite and cable/terrestrial markets simultaneously.”

Wei Cui, General Manager of Digital Media at Inspur, another major Chinese set-top box manufacturer, said, “Continuing the success of previous joint projects, ST’s HD cable chipset, which implements robust security, is a highly integrated, secure, and optimized product that provides seamless support for our popular middleware products, enabling excellent performance even in basic set-top boxes.”

ST's new additions to the set-top box SoC portfolio, the STiH253 and STiH271EL, are currently being sampled to select customers in 27 x 27mm and 23 x 23mm BGA packages.