Another look a AViA-9600..............................
techweb.com
September 18, 2000, Issue: 1132
Section: Semiconductors
Integrated device supports time shifting -- C-Cube preps set-top silicon
Junko Yoshida
SAN MATEO, CALIF. - C-Cube Microsystems Inc. (Milpitas, Calif.) is introducing advanced digital TV set-top silicon that integrates a host CPU, audio/video decoder, audio DSP and graphics processor.
The AViA-9600, C-Cube's fourth-generation set-top-box IC, is applicable to digital satellite decoders, cable set-tops or terrestrial consumer boxes that may feature personal video-recording capabilities.
Chris Day, senior director of marketing at C-Cube's Broadband Network Division, said the device is aimed at "three key market trends that are fueling explosive growth of set-tops today," including time-shifting; enhanced content display; and connectivity with other consumer electronics devices through the Universal Serial Bus and the IEEE-1394 interface.
Built into the AViA-9600 are multiple dedicated processing units including a 150-MHz Sparc processor with 32 kbytes of cache; an audio/video decoder capable of decoding MPEG, DSS and DVD; an audio DSP offering Dolby Digital, MP3, MPEG-2 and DTS; and an advanced graphics processor. The chip also features a unified memory architecture, requiring 4 to 128 Mbytes of synchronous DRAM to support the entire set-top system.
In addition to such core processing units, the chip provides multiple bus interfaces to address the issue of connectivity with various peripherals. They include IDE, PCI and parallel port, along with USB and 1394.
The demand for hard-disk drive integration in a set-top is real and growing, Day said. "Practically every service operator and every set-top vendor we've talked to is either ready to go or is working on a set-top featuring HDD." C-Cube has incorporated an IDE controller in the AViA-9600 so that the chip can connect directly to a hard drive, enabling time-shifting and data-broadcasting applications.
Satellite operators, in particular, see hard drives as a critical technology element that can be leveraged to compete with cable operators, said Day. For digital satellite broadcasting, inherently based on a one-way broadband infrastructure, hard-drive integration makes it possible to offer a video-on-demand service done locally inside the box, he said.
Since connectivity with other consumer electronics boxes in the home is also a big issue for many set-top manufacturers, C-Cube included both 1394 and USB controllers in the new device. With them, a set-top can connect to digital cameras, camcorders, external hard drives, digital TV sets and printers. Asked about whether a Digital Visual Interface (DVI) may be needed in the next-generation set-top, Day said, "We may have a different answer in a year's time, but for the time being, DVI was not requested."
To ensure copy protection, C-Cube has incorporated both circuitry for the "5C" copy protection scheme for content security over IEEE 1394 and Content Protection for Recordable Media-based encryption for protection of content on the hard-disk drive.
Among the most important features packed into the IC is a new, advanced 2-D graphics processor. This on-chip processor is capable of creating an unlimited number of overlapping planes and arbitrary-shaped regions, while minimizing CPU overhead.
To differentiate their user interfaces, service providers have been constantly changing requirements for a number of planes that a new set-top needs to support, said Ed Silva, senior manager of product marketing at the Broadband Network Division. For many set-top vendors and chip companies, requests to add another plane have been a nightmare, entailing major chip modifications, including changes in DMA channels and memory. Such efforts not only raised cost but also prolonged time-to-market.
"We wanted to put an end to the war over planes by introducing a future-proof on-chip graphics processor," said Silva. C-Cube engineers have designed a micro-coded graphics engine they say is flexible enough to support and implement a broad range of middleware APIs adopted by different service providers.
The engine allows flexible size, position and shape of planes and regions, while offering arbitrary region zoom and 256 levels of alpha blending. Moreover, the processor can provide flicker-filter control per region, a capability needed to display Web content. All of this plane/region composition is done without intervention by a host CPU, said Silva.
'Building-block architecture'
The graphics-performance capability incorporated in the AViA-9600 is tailored to broadcast TV or Web applications. If service providers require support for 3-D graphics for videogames, for example, they can add a 3-D graphics chip to a PCI bus supported by AViA-9600, Silva added.
Most set-top vendors today are scrambling to find a common set-top architecture they can reuse and plug into set-top design projects for different service providers. Companies like Sony, Philips and Nokia are "all requesting a common building-block architecture, so that they can limit their investment in engineering resources," observed Day. "We think AViA-9600 offers a set-top architecture that can scale for different applications," said Silva.
The new chip, fabricated using an 0.18-micron process, is priced at $22 in volume. C-Cube will start sampling it next month, with a plan for volume production in the first quarter of 2001.
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