Television-on-a-Chip Enables Manufacturers to Cost-Effectively Transition
Televisions to Support Both Analog/Digital Broadcast and Cable Programming
LAS VEGAS, 2005 International CES, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of highly integrated
semiconductor solutions enabling broadband communications, today announced a
highly integrated, single-chip solution for televisions that enables consumer
electronics manufacturers to develop complete lines of affordable televisions
that support analog, high definition (HD), standard definition (SD) and
digital cable television programming featuring superior video, audio and
graphics quality.
"Television manufacturers are being faced with the added costs of
transitioning their entire product lines over to support both analog and
digital television signals for cable and broadcast channels," said Daniel
Marotta, Group Vice President of Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group.
"Our single-chip TV solution greatly reduces the complexity and cost of the
system design, enabling manufacturers to transition their entire product lines
to affordable high-quality analog/digital televisions in a variety of size and
display options."
"The FCC is mandating that all televisions 13-inches or larger must have a
digital tuner by July 2007. This mandate places significant cost pressures on
television manufacturers to deliver televisions that not only support digital
television, but also support all of the hundreds of analog channels still
being distributed by operators," said Michelle Abraham, In-Stat Senior
Analyst. "By offering a single-chip digital TV (DTV) solution that supports
both digital and analog reception, Broadcom is enabling television
manufacturers to economically address the industry conversion to DTV."
The Broadcom(R) BCM3560 television-on-a-chip represents the television
industry's first single-chip solution that is compatible with the National
Television Systems Committee (NTSC) analog standard, the North American
digital terrestrial or Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) digital
standard, and the digital cable television standard. The BCM3560 also
integrates video processing functions that allow manufacturers to customize
the video output to support multiple television displays, including liquid
crystal displays (LCD), plasma displays, cathode ray tube (CRT) displays and
projection technology. This capability, coupled with additional features
offered in the BCM3560 chip, guarantees high-quality picture and sound, and
significantly decreases the number of chips required in a TV system, making it
more cost effective for manufacturers to build televisions that support both
analog and digital reception.
BCM3560 Product Technology
The BCM3560 is a complete television-on-a-chip that integrates both analog
and digital receivers compliant with NTSC, ATSC and digital cable television
standards. Advanced features in the BCM3560 include picture-in-picture (PIP)
capabilities, an advanced 3-D comb Y/C standard separation circuit, a
multi-field de-interlace circuit, proprietary picture improvement functions,
digital and analog video output interfaces and video scalars. The integrated
ATSC receiver uses an advanced system architecture that enables the chip to
reliably acquire, track and demodulate signals in the presence of interference
or a wide range of varying multi-path channel conditions that experience the
presence of noise. The on-chip IF demodulator, dual NTSC analog video
decoders, broadcast stereo decoder and HD decoder enable the televisions to
support a multitude of picture-in-picture combinations.
Broadcom's proprietary and highly flexible video processing technology
ensures that the BCM3560 device offers a clear, sharp and color rich display
on traditional CRTs, flat panel displays (LCDs, plasmas) and rear projection
systems. The BCM3560 includes support for analog input signals from external
devices such as DVD players and VCRs with its ability to directly accept
composite, S-video and high definition (HD) as well as standard definition
(SD) component input signals. Digital input signals are supported by the
integrated high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) receiver, providing an
industry standard interface to other high definition video and multi-channel
audio consumer electronics for providing a crystal-clear digital quality audio
and video connection over a single cable.
The BCM3560 also incorporates a 250 MHz MIPS32(TM) CPU and Broadcom's 2D
graphics engine, which enables the rich graphical user interface that is
expected for high-quality consumer electronic products. Additional system
cost savings are offered by the numerous system functions added to the
BCM3560, which include extensive analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog
converters, interfaces for memory, smart cards, a high-speed interface
supporting a high-speed 1394 connection, integrated memory and a flexible
interface bus to support additional connectivity, including wireless and USB
connections. These additional features enable Broadcom's customers to be even
more competitive in the HD television market.
Broadcom also has available a comprehensive set of reference software and
development tools to complement the BCM3560's integrated features and minimize
system development time and complexity for television manufacturers.
Pricing and Availability
The BCM3560 will be sampling to early access customers during the
first quarter of 2005. Pricing is available upon request.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading provider of highly integrated
semiconductor solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of
voice, video and data services. We design, develop and supply complete
system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions incorporating digital, analog, radio
frequency (RF), microprocessor and digital signal processing (DSP)
technologies, as well as related hardware and software system-level
applications. Our diverse product portfolio addresses every major broadband
communications market and includes solutions for digital cable and satellite
set-top boxes; high definition television (HDTV); cable and digital subscriber
line (DSL) modems and residential gateways; high-speed transmission and
switching for local, metropolitan, wide area and storage networking; home and
wireless networking; cellular and terrestrial wireless communications; Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway and telephony systems; broadband network
and security processors; and SystemI/O(TM) server solutions. These
technologies and products support our core mission: Connecting everything(R).
Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at
1-949-450-8700 or at http://www.broadcom.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995:
All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release,
other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are
forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our
current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry,
management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are
subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by
words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts,"
"believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could,"
"potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or
negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees
of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that
could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those
expressed in any forward-looking statement.
Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in
connection with its BCM3560 product include, but are not limited to, general
economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we
address, including the volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor
industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic
regions, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist
activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; the rate
at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's
technologies and products in the markets for HDTV, applications; delays in the
adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; the timing,
rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability,
as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory; our ability to
retain, recruit and hire key executives, technical personnel and other
employees in the positions and numbers, with the experience and capabilities,
and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product
plans; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market
and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a
cost-effective and timely manner; the gain or loss of a key customer, design
win or order; competitive pressures and other factors such as the
qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies
and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; our ability to
scale our operations in response to changes in demand for our products and
services; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of
our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; our
ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving
industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets; changes in
our product or customer mix; the volume of our product sales and pricing
concessions on volume sales; intellectual property disputes and customer
indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; the availability
and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry and assembly capacity and raw
materials; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party
semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication,
assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products
with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; problems or
delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process
technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; the quality
of our products and any remediation costs; the effectiveness of our expense
and product cost control and reduction efforts; the risks and uncertainties
associated with our international operations, particularly in light of recent
events; the effects of natural disasters, public health emergencies,
international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of
orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q,
recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange
Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk
factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our
business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking
statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no
obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any
reason.
Broadcom(R), the pulse logo, Connecting everything(R), the Connecting
everything logo, and SystemI/O(TM) are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation
and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries.
MIPS32(TM) is a trademark of MIPS Technologies, Inc. Any other trademarks or
trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
Broadcom Trade Press Contact
Laura Brandlin
Director, Marketing Communications
949-926-5108
lbrandlin@broadcom.com
Broadcom Business Press Contact
Bill Blanning
Vice President, Public Relations
949-926-5555
blanning@broadcom.com
Broadcom Technical Contact
Stuart Thomson
Product Line Manager
949-926-6215
sthomson@broadcom.com
Broadcom Investor Relations Contact
T. Peter Andrew
Sr. Director, Investor Relations
949-926-5663
andrewtp@broadcom.com
SOURCE Broadcom Corporation
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Related links:
http://www.broadcom.com
CONTACT:
Trade Press, Laura Brandlin, Director,
Marketing Communications, +1-949-926-5108,
lbrandlin@broadcom.com, or Business Press, Bill Blanning, Vice
President, Public Relations, +1-949-926-5555,
blanning@broadcom.com, or Technical, Stuart Thomson, Product Line
Manager, +1-949-926-6215, sthomson@broadcom.com, or Investor
Relations, T. Peter Andrew, Sr. Director, Investor Relations,
+1-949-926-5663, andrewtp@broadcom.com, all of Broadcom
Corporation
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