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To: hueyone who wrote (7772)	5/15/2000 6:46:00 PM
From: James Connolly	Respond to of 10309

Picked this up from the Yahoo thread..... Conexant Introduces the Industry's Most Highly-Integrated Interactive TV Decoder for Worldwide Digital Satellite Platforms biz.yahoo.com LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2000-- Conexant Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNXT - news), today introduced its second-generation interactive TV decoder chip for set-top boxes on digital satellite, cable and terrestrial TV networks. Integrating a high-performance feature set and flexible architecture into a single set-top box back-end chip, Conexant's CX22490/1 enables manufacturers to design low-cost digital TV set-top boxes that support a broad range of interactive platforms for multi-channel TV networks. The CX22490/1 is designed to complement Conexant's CX24108/110 front-end chipset for digital broadcast satellite (DBS) applications, also announced today. These new products combined offer a complete satellite set-top box system solution. A comprehensive silicon and software solution, Conexant's CX22490/1 is an ideal solution as interactivity becomes firmly established in the mainstream set-top box market by delivering leading-edge performance in a low-cost form factor. Building on Conexant's previous generation interactive TV decoder offering, this solution is the centerpiece of the company's portfolio of next-generation set-top box components including cable modems, silicon tuners, demodulators, TV encoder chips and analog modems. ``Conexant's CX22490/1 offers OEMs a compelling value proposition by enabling the latest interactive applications on a cost-effective hardware platform,'' said Eric Rayel, product line manager for Conexant's Digital Infotainment Division. ``Our solution is uniquely positioned to address the performance needs of new mainstream markets for network-centric and thin-client interactive set-top boxes that are being enhanced with on-line services and personal video recorder (PVR) applications.'' Conexant is the only supplier providing a complete system chip-set solution with support for worldwide DBS and European terrestrial set-top boxes. In addition to supporting multiple global standards, Conexant's set-top box solution provides the flexibility to adapt to new operator multiplex requirements with a programmable transport stream demultiplexing architecture. According to market research firm Cahners In-Stat Group, the market for digital cable, satellite and terrestrial set-top boxes is poised to grow from 19 million in 2000 to 39 million in 2003. ``The set-top box market is a moving target, and the features consumers value are continuously changing,'' said Michelle Abraham, senior analyst, Cahners In-Stat Group. ``As a result, OEMs must be able to adapt their products very quickly to changing market demands -- and a flexible silicon and software platform, such as Conexant's, can be critical to a manufacturer's market competitiveness.'' The product includes fully tested software drivers for interactive middleware and real-time operating system platforms. This is a key feature for system manufacturers as set-top boxes, and the software required to support their advanced features, have become increasingly complex. Equipped with fully-integrated Open TV, pSOS and VxWorks driver and BSP software components, Conexant's comprehensive system-level approach reduces development costs and time-to-market. Conexant has integrated its CX22490/1 and software into a comprehensive set-top box system reference design using a complete Conexant system chipset. The product also provides superior flexibility with a generic device driver set which can be adapted to an alternate middleware platform by the manufacturer. A Comprehensive Platform for Interactive Set-Top Boxes Conexant's highly-integrated, system-on-a-chip architecture supports a low bill-of-materials cost, incorporating all the major subsystems required to implement the core system and decoder electronics of a digital interactive TV set-top box. Today's mainstream set-top box platforms need to support PC-quality graphics and a new level of interactivity, creating the need for high-performance processing on a low-cost, highly-integrated chip. Conexant's CX22490/1 incorporates a high-performance, 32-bit RISC CPU, 2D graphics rendering engine and an unified SDRAM memory controller. The CX22490/1 combines these components with an MPEG-2 video decoder core, an audio digital signal processor (DSP) for MPEG/Dolby Digital processing and a dedicated RISC processor with on-chip SRAM for transport stream demultiplexing. This programmable transport stream processor enables support for multiple broadcaster multiplex standards and PVR applications. The product's advanced video/graphics compositing engine and 2D graphics rendering engine support rich visual interactive user interfaces with multiple-image planes and fast-drawing performance required for the latest interactive applications. With a high-performance unified memory architecture, the CX22490/1 reduces memory costs by servicing all system requirements in a single 32-bit wide SDRAM buffer. Additional system component cost savings are realized via complete integration of front panel control interfaces, V.22bis software modem controller/datapump and voltage-controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO). Conexant's CX22490 also supports direct hard disk drive attachment for PVR applications and an integrated USB 1.1 host controller. The CX22490 incorporates a DVB descrambler and the CX22491 includes additional functionality to support the Videoguard(TM) Conditional Access System developed by NDS Ltd.