January 16, 2014, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company providing a wide range of electronic applications, has unveiled the industry's most complete hardware and software platform for realizing a 'digital multimedia home'.

This platform supports all the elements required by the U.S. cable market, ranging from high-speed broadband access and UHD multi-screen video processing to the implementation of seamless home connectivity in wired and wireless networks.

Gian Luca Bertino, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Convergence Group at ST, stated, “To satisfy U.S. consumers’ need for high bandwidth, cable operators have introduced high-speed network cables capable of transmitting high-end interactive content from TV displays to smartphones or tablets.” He added, “To properly process, manage, and distribute such content, ‘home gateways’ and ‘client box system SoCs’ must integrate a wide range of wired and wireless interfaces, low-power modes, and premium content protection features. ST offers a comprehensive and unrivaled range of products for realizing the digital multimedia home, bringing together all the elements necessary for operators to deliver the best experience and cutting-edge services at optimal costs.”

ST's DOCSIS® 3.0 certified cable-modem chips (STiD12 family, codename 'Alicante') provide fast network connectivity for multimedia home entertainment and interactive broadband services. Achieving high data rates of up to 800 Mbit/s, they enable the transmission of video and internet data from set-top boxes and home gateways to a single network, allowing other connected devices to use it simultaneously. The DOCSIS 3.0 chip and associated software stack support the next-generation Internet protocol (IPv6), which enables more devices to connect to the Internet, along with on-demand and streaming content access.

ST's latest multimedia application-processor system-on-chip (the 'Cannes' and 'Monaco' families of STiH3 client boxes and STiH4 server boxes) support decoding and display resolutions up to UHD (2160P) and support the next-generation video compression technology H.265/HEVC. These supports further expand the viewing experience, allowing users to become more realistic and easily immersed.

The STiH3 and STiH4 architectures are based on high-performance dual ARM® Cortex™ CPUs and natively support RDK software, which has been adopted by major U.S. cable manufacturers. In addition, they support other software used by U.S. cable manufacturers, such as the PowerUp HTML5 platform, which includes Zodiac Interactive's PowerUp DVB stack.

ST’s platform enables the transmission of HD video and content at Gigabit (Gbit/s) speeds over wired and wireless networks anywhere in the home. ST chips (STiC2BB/STiC2PA) supporting the MoCA2 (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) specification for home entertainment networking support low-power sleep and standby modes for home multimedia networks, as well as ultra-high-speed, error-free data transmission over existing coaxial cables. ST’s set-top box platform supports the latest Wi-Fi standard (802.11ac), enabling fast and stable wireless streaming of bandwidth-intensive video content—such as OTT (Over-the-Top), pay TV, and games—simultaneously within the same frequency spectrum anywhere in the home.