Broadcom Announces OpenCable Silicon Platform
Platform Merges High-Speed Cable Modem with Advanced Graphics and Video for Interactive Cable-TV Set-Top Boxes
Anaheim, CA, Western Cable Show - December 2, 1998 - Broadcom® Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading developer of integrated circuits enabling high-speed broadband communications to the home and business, today announced an OpenCable silicon platform for high-end, interactive cable-TV set-top boxes. This highly integrated solution merges a high-speed cable modem with studio-quality graphics, text, and video. This allows cable operators to provide web enhanced video programming, multiple video windows and broadband interactive access for applications such as web surfing, email, online gaming or video conferencing using a low-cost, integrated set-top box.
Broadcom's solution consists of the BCM3120 QAMLinkTM Set-top Box Transceiver, BCM3300 QAMLink Single-Chip MCNS/DOCSIS Cable Modem, BCM7014 Advanced 2D/3D TV Graphics System, and BCM7010 Set-top Box Decoder. The platform supports next-generation interactive set-top boxes with the following advanced features:
A dual-tuner architecture that supports two 42 megabits-per-second (Mbps) downstream channels, a 2 Mbps out-of-band channel, and a 20 Mbps upstream channel.
An integrated MCNS/DOCSIS 1.1 cable modem.
Integrated MPEG II transport and video decoding with AC3 audio decoding.
The ability to cost-effectively display studio-quality text and graphics, Internet HTML content and 3D effects on a standard television monitor.
The ability to support both analog and digital video.
The ability to seamlessly integrate Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and videoconferencing.
A high-performance 250 MHz MIPS RISC Microprocessor
The ability to operate with industry-standard software platforms - AperiosTM, JavaTM, OpenTV, PowerTVTM, and WindowsCETM.
"Silicon integration and high performance are necessary to support digital video and interactive applications over television," said Dr. Henry Nicholas, Broadcom's President and CEO. "By merging our communications expertise with our advanced graphics and video technology, we are yet another step closer to a single-chip set-top box that will cost-effectively enable consumers to use their televisions as an interactive multimedia appliance."
"Manufacturers and end users will benefit from Broadcom's long term integration plan for set-top box semiconductors. As the market for Digital Cable heats up, Broadcom is positioned perfectly to become a key worldwide supplier, offering lower costs, smaller footprints and higher performance for interactive set-top boxes," said Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group.
To facilitate the design of set-top boxes using Broadcom's silicon platform, the Company has developed the BCM93714 OpenCable set-top box reference design. The BCM93714 is a fully operational set-top box reference design that cost-effectively supports the ability to simultaneously view high-quality Internet content and web sites, interactive electronic program guides and multiple layered graphics and video windows using standard TV monitors. It provides an interface to Ethernet, UARTs, IDE, Universal Serial Bus (USB) and PCI, which will allow networking within the home to printers and other devices. The BCM93714 includes the BCM3120, BCM3300, BCM7014, BCM7010, a MIPS processor, and two tuners. The reference design comes with schematics, a bill of materials, software, source code, and drivers.
Broadcom's set-top box silicon platform and reference design are available today. Each chip is priced separately. The BCM3120 is packaged in a 256-pin ball grid array (BGA) and is priced at $34 in 100K quantities. The BCM3300 is packaged in a 256-pin BGA and is priced at $35 in 100K quantities. The BCM7010 is packaged in a 272-pin plastic BGA and is priced at $24 in 100K quantities. The BCM7014 is packaged in a 304-pin BGA and is priced at $21 in 100K quantities.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading developer of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital data transmission to the home and within the business enterprise. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the Company has designed and developed integrated circuits for some of the most significant broadband communications markets, including the markets for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed networking products, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL). Broadcom is based in Irvine, California, and can be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at broadcom.com
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
This release may contain forward-looking statements involving risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual future events or results to differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom include, but are not limited to, the volume of product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders; the loss of a significant customer; the timing of customer qualification and industry interoperability certification of new products and the risk of non-qualification or non-certification; the rate of adoption by customers and end-users of new and emerging technologies in the high-speed data networking, cable set-top box, cable modem, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL) markets; the rate of adoption and acceptance of new industry standards in the foregoing markets; the Company's ability to specify, develop, introduce and market new products and technologies on a timely basis; the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies from other vendors; fluctuations in manufacturing yields and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of products; uncertainties associated with international operations; the Company's ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities and at the compensation levels needed to implement its business and product plans; problems or delays in achieving higher levels of design integration and in migrating product designs to smaller geometry processes; intellectual property disputes; changes in product or customer mix; the quality of the Company's products; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a quarter; potential business disruptions and other difficulties resulting from "Year 2000" problems in computer-based systems used by the Company, its suppliers or customers; the effects on operations and management of facility relocations; general economic conditions and market conditions in the markets addressed by Broadcom; and the other factors discussed in the Company's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (Amendment No. 1) dated October 14, 1998, the Final Prospectus dated October 20, 1998, and the Company's quarterly filings on Form 10-Q. Broadcom disclaims any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by it or on its behalf.
Broadcom is a registered trademark of Broadcom Corporation.
QAMLink is a trademark of Broadcom Corporation.
Aperios is a trademark of Sony Corporation.
JAVA is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
OpenTV is a trademark of OpenTV.
PowerTV is a trademark of Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
WindowsCE is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
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