Digital TV set-top boxes have achieved rapid development in the Chinese cable TV market in the past few years. At present, China's domestic cable digital TV set-top box market has more than 40 million units. Domestic digital satellite TV has also been developed in the past six months. The first step is to solve the problem of TV viewing in remote areas. The set-top box used in the village-to-village project has begun to be tendered, and then satellite TV will also be commercialized. The terrestrial digital television broadcasting standard has been determined and signals have been transmitted in multiple regions. IPTV launched by telecom operators currently has millions of users in China.
High-definition digital TV set-top boxes are an important development trend. Take high-definition flat-panel TVs as an example. At present, there are more than 25 million HD flat-panel TVs in China's domestic market, and less than 1% of them can see 1~3 HD channels. This brings about a contradictory situation: on the one hand, a large number of users own high-definition flat-panel TVs, on the other hand, a large number of TV programs are analog and digital SD formats, and most of the deployed set-top boxes only have SD decoding capabilities. It is foreseeable that future HD set-top boxes will have a considerable market share. The main forms of reception include cable set-top boxes, terrestrial wave sets, satellite set-top boxes, all-in-ones and IPTV.
HD set-top box technology development and design challenges
The function of the digital TV set-top box has been to receive the stream from the beginning, decompress the video and audio, display the EPG information, simple OSD menu, to now add interactive functions, broadband network video and audio applications, peripheral data interface has also added high-speed USB, Ethernet interface, eSATA interface and other common interfaces for PC. The addition of these interfaces has enabled the range of applications for set-top boxes to be effectively extended, and STMicroelectronics (ST)'s high-performance set-top box chip STi7105 can now be used to implement home media center applications. Therefore, the application development of high-definition set-top boxes is no longer a single function development, but how to use high-performance set-top box chips to develop multi-functional applications, the maximum possible use of chip processing capabilities, which is a challenge for the development of set-top box products.
MPEG2 has been used as the first standard for digital TV for more than 10 years. The new generation of encoding format H.264 has also been widely used. China's AVS codec standard has also been applied in some places. At the same time, the application of dual-mode set-top boxes supporting cable digital TV and IPTV is increasing. Therefore, for chip products, not only must we support existing standards, but also have the ability to upgrade to support new technologies, all of which are supported. Higher requirements are placed on the development of set-top boxes, and the stability of set-top boxes is also subject to more stringent challenges.
Low-cost, high-performance, low-power product requirements have begun to become very important. Defining the product to achieve the lowest power consumption in various states has become a major challenge for design engineers. He not only needs to understand the low power capability of the chip, but also know how to use these capabilities to optimize and broaden the product. Accepted for the market.
Figure 2: Block diagram of the STi7105-based set-top box architecture.
At present, ST has developed 4 generations of high-definition decoding chips, and has accumulated rich experience in high-definition digital TV single-chip decoding SoC field, including flexible chip technology architecture design, supporting customers to develop various applications, mature low-cost advanced Production process, etc. The STi7105 is a high-performance H.264 high-definition digital TV set-top box SoC decoder chip, which is improved by advanced semiconductor production process and optimized design, improves the performance of each functional module, increases the high-speed data interface, reduces power consumption, and reduces system Overall material cost. STi7105 is a SoC chip with a wide range of applications, mainly used in cable high-definition digital TV set-top boxes, satellite high-definition digital TV set-top boxes, terrestrial digital TV set-top boxes, IPTV set-top boxes, network TV download and playback, multimedia handheld devices, home multimedia centers and so on.
Figure 3: Schematic diagram of the internal structure of the STi7105.
Figure 1: ST set-top box product planning diagram.
Many complex applications can be developed on high-performance chips, which will inevitably increase the complexity of software and hardware development. How to develop high-quality products that meet market requirements for R&D engineers and project managers in a short period of time. Raised the challenge. ST fully recognizes the challenges faced by customers, so ST provides high-performance chips, as well as operating systems such as Linux, WinCE, OS21 and mature driver software, as well as API sources that help R&D engineers quickly become familiar with and use them. Program code, as well as the 3FX OpenGL ES1.1 API.
ST HD set-top box solution
STMicroelectronics (ST) is the world's largest set-top box (STB) chip manufacturer. At present, China's domestic set-top box manufacturers use ST chips in large quantities, and ST's set-top box chips have the largest market share in China. ST continues to introduce new products, improve chip performance, reduce chip costs, and improve the quality of technical services to achieve and maintain market leadership for many years.
Figure 2: Block diagram of the STi7105-based set-top box architecture.
At present, ST has developed 4 generations of high-definition decoding chips, and has accumulated rich experience in high-definition digital TV single-chip decoding SoC field, including flexible chip technology architecture design, supporting customers to develop various applications, mature low-cost advanced Production process, etc. The STi7105 is a high-performance H.264 high-definition digital TV set-top box SoC decoder chip, which is improved by advanced semiconductor production process and optimized design, improves the performance of each functional module, increases the high-speed data interface, reduces power consumption, and reduces system Overall material cost. STi7105 is a SoC chip with a wide range of applications, mainly used in cable high-definition digital TV set-top boxes, satellite high-definition digital TV set-top boxes, terrestrial digital TV set-top boxes, IPTV set-top boxes, network TV download and playback, multimedia handheld devices, home multimedia centers and so on.
Shenzhen Ousida Technology Co., Ltd , https://www.osdvape.com