Design Article
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kinnar
It quite true that Silicon Tuner ICs will be the perfect replacement of Analog ...
agk
This recalls me designing of Analog VHF UHF tuners in the year 1980. THe LO and ...
Design concerns and global opportunities for TV
Alan Hansford, Silicon Labs
10/25/2011 10:07 AM EDT
Silicon TV tuner ICs are rapidly displacing legacy mixer oscillator phase-locked loop (MOPLL) CAN tuner technologies to reduce cost and size and improve performance. Silicon tuner IC adoption began before 2007 and gained real traction during 2010 when flat-panel TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) saw a significant increase in sales. Designing silicon TV tuners that matched MOPLL performance levels was the main hurdle for adoption, but once semiconductor suppliers met this performance standard, the road was cleared for silicon tuner IC shipments to accelerate. Several suppliers now offer a wide variety of silicon TV tuner products. Navigating the competing options can be a complex process given the wide range of issues surrounding TV tuner IC selection. Putting these technical issues into perspective will help simplify the TV tuner selection process.
State of the market
TV market demand has grown to an amazing 230 million units (Mu) per year across a wide range of regions. The broader TV market breaks down into two segments relevant to TV tuner ICs: integrated digital television (iDTV) platforms (approximately 160 Mu) and analog-only TVs (approximately 70 Mu), which consist of both flat-panel TVs and analog-processed CRT TVs.
Analog-processed CRT TVs employ an older image processing technology. In contrast, flat panel TVs incorporate advanced DSP-based image processor SoCs supplied by companies such as Broadcom, MediaTek, MStar, Novatech and Sunplus Technology. Some major TV brands also have their own internal semiconductor teams that build captive flat-panel SoCs. Analog-processed CRT TVs use less capable microcontrollers and cannot easily accommodate silicon tuner IC programming and configuration. These analog-processed TVs are likely to retain the older MOPLL CAN tuner implementations, which often require more than 150 separate components (see Figure 1). Flat-panel platforms employ modern high-performance processors that run a substantial amount of firmware so they are well positioned to configure modern digital devices such as silicon TV tuner ICs.
Figure 1: Example of MOPLL CAN tuner, which requires 150+ components. Top of PCB (left) and bottom of PCB (right).
Many TVs must support both analog and digital transmission standards to meet consumer demands. Examples of analog transmission standards include NTSC and PAL/SECAM. In this case, the word “analog” describes the transmission modulation format and not the specific processing technology used to decode it. Many countries are in various stages of executing their analog switch-over plans where the terrestrial analog broadcasts will be terminated and replaced with higher quality digital broadcasts. Yet even in countries that have theoretically made the hard cut over to digital, the analog transmissions remain active, and consumers continue to demand support for these transmissions. Japan is perhaps an exception, having achieved a true conversion to all digital, but TVs sold in virtually every other region are forced to retain analog reception capability to deal with low-power analog broadcasts, slow-to-upgrade cable networks and legacy consumer electronics devices. Tuner support for analog transmissions will be required by all major TV brands for TVs outside of Japan for at least five more years and likely for ten more years.
Numerous TV platforms accept content from both terrestrial and cable sources. As a practical matter, these platforms must support analog transmissions as long as the multi-subscriber operators (MSOs) continue to transmit analog content on their cable networks. Cable and terrestrial STB segments add an additional 175 million systems of demand per year.
A recent forecast of silicon tuner ICs from IMS Research (Figure 2) projects the market growth for the overall number of TV tuners for demand TV, STB, cable modem, satellite receiver and other segments. Several multipliers are applied to account for multi-tuner IC applications, generating the roughly 700 million units of overall tuner IC market opportunity shown. The rapid adoption of silicon tuner ICs is evident from this data and is even stronger when focusing on just the TV and cable STB segments where silicon tuner ICs have made deeper inroads.
Figure 2: IMS Research forecast shows growing market demand for silicon tuners. Source: IMS Research, March 2011
State of the market
TV market demand has grown to an amazing 230 million units (Mu) per year across a wide range of regions. The broader TV market breaks down into two segments relevant to TV tuner ICs: integrated digital television (iDTV) platforms (approximately 160 Mu) and analog-only TVs (approximately 70 Mu), which consist of both flat-panel TVs and analog-processed CRT TVs.
Analog-processed CRT TVs employ an older image processing technology. In contrast, flat panel TVs incorporate advanced DSP-based image processor SoCs supplied by companies such as Broadcom, MediaTek, MStar, Novatech and Sunplus Technology. Some major TV brands also have their own internal semiconductor teams that build captive flat-panel SoCs. Analog-processed CRT TVs use less capable microcontrollers and cannot easily accommodate silicon tuner IC programming and configuration. These analog-processed TVs are likely to retain the older MOPLL CAN tuner implementations, which often require more than 150 separate components (see Figure 1). Flat-panel platforms employ modern high-performance processors that run a substantial amount of firmware so they are well positioned to configure modern digital devices such as silicon TV tuner ICs.
Figure 1: Example of MOPLL CAN tuner, which requires 150+ components. Top of PCB (left) and bottom of PCB (right).
Many TVs must support both analog and digital transmission standards to meet consumer demands. Examples of analog transmission standards include NTSC and PAL/SECAM. In this case, the word “analog” describes the transmission modulation format and not the specific processing technology used to decode it. Many countries are in various stages of executing their analog switch-over plans where the terrestrial analog broadcasts will be terminated and replaced with higher quality digital broadcasts. Yet even in countries that have theoretically made the hard cut over to digital, the analog transmissions remain active, and consumers continue to demand support for these transmissions. Japan is perhaps an exception, having achieved a true conversion to all digital, but TVs sold in virtually every other region are forced to retain analog reception capability to deal with low-power analog broadcasts, slow-to-upgrade cable networks and legacy consumer electronics devices. Tuner support for analog transmissions will be required by all major TV brands for TVs outside of Japan for at least five more years and likely for ten more years.
Numerous TV platforms accept content from both terrestrial and cable sources. As a practical matter, these platforms must support analog transmissions as long as the multi-subscriber operators (MSOs) continue to transmit analog content on their cable networks. Cable and terrestrial STB segments add an additional 175 million systems of demand per year.
A recent forecast of silicon tuner ICs from IMS Research (Figure 2) projects the market growth for the overall number of TV tuners for demand TV, STB, cable modem, satellite receiver and other segments. Several multipliers are applied to account for multi-tuner IC applications, generating the roughly 700 million units of overall tuner IC market opportunity shown. The rapid adoption of silicon tuner ICs is evident from this data and is even stronger when focusing on just the TV and cable STB segments where silicon tuner ICs have made deeper inroads.
Figure 2: IMS Research forecast shows growing market demand for silicon tuners. Source: IMS Research, March 2011
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Frank Eory
10/25/2011 6:49 PM EDT
"Designing silicon TV tuners that matched MOPLL performance levels was the main hurdle for adoption..."
I'm not sure it was that, so much as it was finding ways around the patents of early silicon tuner makers like Microtune.
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agk
10/27/2011 4:53 AM EDT
This recalls me designing of Analog VHF UHF tuners in the year 1980. THe LO and tuned circuits tuned by varactor diodes BB115,116.They were made on glossepoxy boards with the inductors made on the board's copper area for UHF portion.Matching the various stages over the whole band and setting the tuning is the interesting portion of it. This item will have its market for life time.
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kinnar
10/27/2011 2:24 PM EDT
It quite true that Silicon Tuner ICs will be the perfect replacement of Analog Tuners this has all the advantages of the digital tuning with the digital displays or digital devices. In fact designers were really wanted to have such kind of device which be easily interfaced in the design with improvement in the user friendliness.
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