MaxLinear announces three STB design wins for Brazil and Argentina DTV markets

CARLSBAD, USA: MaxLinear Inc. announced that three leading set-top box (STB) manufacturers have started shipping the MxL135RF silicon tuner in STBs targeted at Brazil and Argentina. This marks the company’s debut into these emerging Latin American markets.

The MxL135RF device is a low-power silicon tuner that exceeds the RF performance requirements of the closely related ISDB-T and SBTVD-T digital terrestrial broadcast standards. ISDB-T is the terrestrial broadcast standard in Japan, whereas SBTVD-T is the technical standard for digital television broadcasting in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Bolivia.

Other countries in Asia and Africa are also considering the ISDB-T broadcast standard as part of their national plan to switch off analog TV broadcasts and convert to digital television, often referred to as the “analog switch-off.”

The Latin American SBTVD-T markets, particularly Brazil and Argentina, are expected to generate significant market opportunities for digital TV products in the coming years as the countries transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting.

“By 2015, we predict that more than 107 million homes will receive digital TV service over ISDB-T and the average home will have two TVs, resulting in a potential market of more than 200 million ISDB-T receivers,” according to Carlos Blanco, director of Research at Dataxis-NexTV Latam. “Digital terrestrial television (DTT) set-top boxes and integrated digital televisions (iDTVs) will be the primary method for consumers in these countries to receive digital television signals.”

MaxLinear has shipped millions of MxL135RF tuners to the Japanese market for a wide variety of products including digital set-top boxes, integrated digital TVs, blu-ray recorders, PCTV devices and portable media players since 2009.

“The widespread adoption of MxL135RF is due to its unique combination of low cost, low power, exceptional performance, and very high quality and reliability demanded by the Japanese consumer electronic manufacturers,” said John Graham, MaxLinear’s Vice President of Marketing. “These same attributes also make the MxL135RF the tuner of choice for emerging Latin American markets.”

One of the first companies to choose the MxL135RF is Skyworth, a global digital TV manufacturer based in Hong Kong. “Skyworth is pleased to work with MaxLinear, an industry leader in low cost silicon tuner solutions,” said David Ken, Vice General Manager of Overseas Sales and Marketing at Skyworth.

“Our collaboration with MaxLinear in the DVB-T market resulted in a product lineup of high performance terrestrial converter boxes at aggressive consumer price points. We expect to bring the same model of collaboration and success to the ISDB-T markets in Latin America.”

The MxL135RF can receive an input signal spanning a continuous frequency band from 44 MHz to 860 MHz from a 75-ohm antenna or cable. The MxL135RF has an integrated low noise amplifier (LNA), on-chip tracking & PLL loop filters, automatic gain control, LO generation, and channel selectivity functions to simplify board design and minimize the bill-of-materials (BOM).

The MxL135RF is available in a 5x5 QFN package and consumes 350mW of power. Additionally, the tuner has a flexible intermediate frequency (IF) output ranging from 4 to 44 MHz to support all commercially available demodulators.