NXP sets a benchmark for silicon tuners with TDA18272

SINGAPORE: As the TV industry moves towards the full-scale adoption of silicon tuners, NXP Semiconductors today announced the availability of the TDA18272 - a high performance silicon tuner designed for worldwide terrestrial and cable TV reception.

The DVB-T2-enabled TDA18272 supports all analog and digital TV standards worldwide, helping TV manufacturers get ready for the next- generation TV sets. Driving system optimized silicon tuners, NXP has shipped over 400 million NXP silicon tuners to date. The TDA18272 represents the fourth generation of silicon tuners designed by NXP.

With silicon tuners poised to replace traditional MoPLL based CAN tuners in all applications, the TDA18272 addresses the growing global demand for highly integrated, low power and ultra-slim TV architectures. Possessing a very small form factor, the TDA18272 comes in a 40 pin, 6mmx6mm package which facilitates the design of ultra-slim, flat TV panels.

Featuring a high level of integration, the TDA18272 incorporates RF tracking filters, oscillators, IF selectivity and wide band gain control, eliminating the need for external components such as SAW filters or Baluns. With TDA18272, NXP introduces a unique Master/Slave architecture for optimizing the design of multi-tuner applications. The TDA18272 is manufactured under NXP’s zero defect program which enables manufacturers to simplify product assembly and supply-chain management.

“Production-proven silicon tuners such as the TDA18272 will swiftly replace CAN tuners, just as transistors replaced vacuum tubes during the 60s. TV broadcast tuners are evolving rapidly, replacing old radio RF analog circuits with silicon tuners. NXP’s silicon tuners speed up the design-in process, save production costs and improve performance. They also save space in multi-tuner systems and reduce energy requirements,” said Robert Murray, General Manager and Senior Director, Product Line TV Front End, NXP Semiconductors.

“Traditional STB and TV tuners have reached a stage of maturity in size and price, making further technological progress difficult. To overcome this, we are continuously looking at highly integrated solutions which meet attractive system cost. Silicon tuners which integrates the tuner function and channel filters are such building blocks. The NXP silicon tuner technology helps us to design products which meet current market requirements. Because of the high level of integration, they are also ideal for multi-tuner applications,” said Veit Armbruster, VP of development, NuTune.

With the explosion of cable, satellite, terrestrial, and Internet content delivery technologies, TV and STBs have entered into a new digital era. Tuners with highly integrated functions and small size are in great demand. With the TDA18272, NXP offers the TDA8296 IF demodulator as a companion chip for worldwide analog TV demodulation.

The TDA8296 IF demodulator features integrated programmable group delay and video gain equalizers enabling system optimization in design. To reduce time to market, NXP also offers a complete family of reference design suites (boards, documentation and software package) for test and evaluation.

With its 20 years of heritage in TV reception technologies, NXP is at the forefront of designing technologies which will enable TV manufacturers switch to different tuner architectures to meet evolving consumer and technical demands. NXP has also introduced TDA18212- a high performance silicon tuner for STB’s. The TDA18212 offers a unique Master/Slave architecture for dual tuner digital set-top boxes.

Technical Information
The key features of the TDA18272 are:
· Single 3.3 V supply voltage
· Small form factor 40-pin ROHs compliant ,HVQFN (6 x 6 mm)
· No need for external LNA and SAW filters
· Master and Slave versions simplifying multi-tuner applications
· Integrated RF tracking filters and fully integrated oscillators (no need for extra oscillators, IF selectivity, LNA, SAW filters)
· Fully integrated IF selectivity
· Low power consumption and RoHS green solution
· Integrated wideband gain control
· Best-in-class phase noise performance
· Crystal oscillator output buffer (16 MHz) for single crystal applications
· I²C-bus interface (3.3 V / 5 V )
· Easy programming and alignment free
· Low IF output ranges from 3 to 5 MHz

Standards supported
Analog - PAL, SECAM, NTSC
Digital- DVB-T/C, DVB-T2, ATSC, ISDB-T, DMB-T

Target specification
· CENELEC EN55020 (EU)
· NorDig 2.0 (EU)
· DTG 6.0 (EU)
· ATSC A74 (US)
· NorDig cable (EU)
· C-BOOK conformance (Cable, EU)
· E-BOOK and D-BOOK
· ARIB STD-B21
· OCUR (US)

The TDA18272 is available immediately. It is priced at $1.5 per unit.