Date: 26/03/2012

STB SoC from Renesas receive TV broadcast and support internet content

Renesas Electronics has announced the availability of its new system-on-chip (SoC) for high-end set-top boxes (STBs). The R-Home S1 supports both worldwide digital TV broadcast reception and Internet content distribution.

In February 2011, the total shipments of Renesas' STB SoCs reached 100 million units. Services that integrate communications, broadcasting, and Internet connectivity have been growing worldwide. As a result, the requirements for hybrid STBs that can support these services are increasing. Additionally, there are now calls for the ability to rebroadcast to smart phones and other mobile terminals content received with a STB, says Renesas.

Key features of the R-Home S1 SoC as per Renesas:
(1) The industry's highest level of CPU and 3D graphics processing performance in a STB product
By adopting the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, the R-Home S1 achieves an industry-leading performance of 5000 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS) at 1 GHz. This corresponds to a performance increase of approximately 8 times compared to Renesas existing devices and can support a wide range of computation intensive applications including future multimedia formats by the use of the ARM NEON engine.
Furthermore, this new device incorporates the Imagination Technologies Ltd PowerVR SGX531 3D graphics core, which can implement photo-realistic 3D graphics display and intuitive 3D GUIs.
(2) MPEG encoder/transcoder for converting between video formats
The R-Home S1 incorporates a high-definition MPEG encoder supporting up to 1280 × 720 pixels at 30 fps and can convert input signals in real-time to any one of the MPEG2, MPEG4 or H.263 formats. This allows broadcast or Internet content received in an R-Home S1 based STB to be streamed to mobile terminals and even use STBs for video phone applications.
(3) Achieves industry-leading small package and low power consumption
By adopting a 40-nanometer (nm) process, ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor and optimised number of pins for a hybrid STB device, the R-Home S1 SoC has achieved an industry-leading small package size of 27 × 27 millimetres (mm) resulting in reduction of both board and system costs, and lower power consumption in high-performance hybrid STB products.
(4) Supports the latest security specifications for preventing unauthorized content reception over broadcast and Internet channels
Recognizing the importance of copyright protection, the R-Home S1 supports the latest standards from world's leading security vendors for preventing unauthorized reception of commercial broadcasts. Adopting these standards makes it easier for system designers to implement highly-secure STBs for commercial broadcasters.

R-Home S1 SoC incorporates 1G and 100MHz Ethernet MACs for supporting high-speed Internet and Home Networking connections. It also incorporates general purpose PCI Express, and SDIO interfaces which can be interfaced to WiFi chipsets or any other functions that an operator requires.

Pricing and Availability: Samples of the R-Home S1 SoC will be available in May 2012, priced at US$30 per unit. Mass production is scheduled to commence in December 2012 and is expected to reach a combined volume of 1,000,000 units per month by June 2013. (Pricing and availability are subject to change)