Entropic EN4020 Multi-Mode Hybrid Silicon Tuner to use Jazz Semiconductor components

  • Posted on: 21 July 2009
  • By: Patrick Oliphant

jazz semiconductorJazz Semiconductor, a Tower Group company the leader in Analog-Intensive Mixed-Signal (AIMS) foundry solutions, and Entropic Communications Inc., a leading provider of silicon and software solutions to enable connected home entertainment, today announced volume production of Entropic's EN4020, the company's new multi-mode hybrid silicon tuner.

The EN4020 uses Jazz's cost-effective 0.18-micron CMOS process (CA18QD) and its world class RF modeling design kit to develop small yet effective inductors essential for silicon tuner products.

The EN4020 multi-mode silicon tuner supports worldwide standards and is targeted at high volume can tuners as well as high performance digital TV (DTV) and cable/terrestrial set-top box (STB) products.

"In 2009, we are estimating that the fixed reception silicon tuner market is 170M units, with that number nearly doubling to over 300M units by 2013," said Hiroko Ishii, snalyst at Techno Systems Research Inc. "Fueling that growth is demand for high performance DTV and cable/terrestrial set-top boxes as well as a significant shift in designs moving from discrete solutions to integrated silicon tuners."

Complex RF designs like Entropic's silicon tuner solutions require high quality design tools to achieve fast time-to-market and first time silicon success.

Jazz worked with Entropic, specifically leveraging the unique Jazz Inductor Tool Kit, to optimize the design of the EN4020.

Jazz differentiates itself by strategically focusing on RF silicon process technologies, offering its customers advanced analog and RF design and modeling expertise to meet the demanding performance requirements of analog and RF ICs.

"In addition to the higher levels of performance our processes allow Entropic to achieve, Jazz technology platforms enable them to realize smaller die size by scaling down the analog portion of the chip, without compromising quality," said Chuck Fox, senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing for Tower and Jazz Semiconductor.

"Our advanced silicon process technology is a cost-effective, high-performance solution for customers like Entropic to enable quick time-to-market for innovative products such as the EN4020, targeted at the rapidly growing home entertainment market."

Building on the success of Entropic's first generation tuner solutions, the EN4020 was the first to offer hybrid functionality in a fully integrated CMOS design, eliminating the need, cost and footprint of two tuner modules.

The EN4020's multi-mode capability allows designers to develop a single hardware variant for worldwide operation, simplifying design complexity and drastically lowering development costs.

"As the worldwide transition from analog to digital grows, Entropic continues to lead the charge by addressing the demanding performance specifications required for today's TV's and STB's," said Vinay Gokhale, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Entropic. "As a result of our partnership with Jazz, Entropic has brought to market our most advanced silicon tuner to date, offering tuner manufacturers a hybrid, low cost, flexible solution."

Source: www.reuters.com

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