Advanced 3.0 Chip Launched For Mobile, Broadcast

ONE Media 3.0, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Saankhya Labs today announced the successful launch of what they called “the world’s most advanced multi-standard demodulator System-on-a-Chip (SoC) supporting the ATSC 3.0 standard.” The chip was produced in collaboration with VeriSilicon and Samsung Foundry.

The universal demodulator chip is based on Saankhya’s patented Software Defined Radio platform and supports 12 DTV standards including ATSC 3.0, DVB-T2, ISDB-T, and satellite and cable standards for TV, set-top boxes, home gateways as well for automotive and mobile applications.

This announcement follows Sinclair Broadcast Group’s recent commitment to a nationwide roll-out of ATSC 3.0 service and its past announcement to fund millions of chipsets giveaways for wireless operators.

Two variants of the chip were announced.

• A Demod-only variant — SL3000 — is designed for linear TV applications such as reception in HDTV sets, set-top boxes (STB) and home gateways.
• A Demod-plus Tuner variant — SL4000 — is designed for mobile and portable devices, making it the world’s first mobile-ready ATSC 3.0 chip, the companies said. The mobile device variant of the chip is targeted to accelerate the adoption of ATSC 3.0 standard across the markets with direct-to-mobile TV capabilities and Broadcast/Broadband convergence solutions. These have the very real potential to disrupt the mobile broadband and broadcast industries.

The demodulator SoC was designed and developed by Saankhya Labs with ASIC turnkey design and manufacturing services from VeriSilicon, using Samsung Foundry’s 28FDS (its fully depleted SOI process technology), chosen for its unique low power capabilities offered by the back bias option. The companies said Samsung Foundry’s 28FDS “is the most advanced and mature process in volume production and as such provides the highest degree of quality and reliability for customer designs.”

Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media 3.0, said: “These mobile 3.0 chips validate the ‘sea change’ in over-the-air distribution of, not only television, but all digital data. Broadcasters are doing their part by deploying the NextGen transmission facilities, and now there will be devices enabled to recieve that data — personalized and in mobile form. This chip is the key to that disruptive future in a 5G world.”

“We are excited to bring disruptive changes to the broadcasting industry with the launch of our most advanced mobile and terrestrial TV demodulator SoC,” said Parag Naik, CEO of Saankhya Labs. “This mobile TV SoC is an essential component of our patented broadcast offload convergence solution. This will help broadcasters and telecom service providers enable their vision to bring unmatched video viewing experience anywhere, anytime, to the consumer,”

“In this new era of consumer and mobile computing applications, we are happy to enable ONE Media’s disruptive vision of the mobile and broadcasting experience via our state of the art 28FDS process technology,” said Hong Hao, SVP of Foundry, Samsung Semiconductor Inc. “Furthermore, the bandwidth and power benefits that our technology enables are enhanced to shorten the design cycle time, deliver best-in-class products and value to existing and emerging markets.”

“As a Silicon-Platform-as-a-Service (SiPaaS) company, VeriSilicon is pleased to collaborate with Sinclair Broadcast Group and ONE Media, contributing to their transformational vision of rolling-out ATSC 3.0 solutions to the broader market. Leveraging its experience of design for FD-SOI technolgies and collaborating closely with our premier customer Saankhya Labs and our foundry partner Samsung, VeriSilicon is proud to deliver energy efficient silicon solutions helping to translate this collective vision into a reality,” said Dr. Wayne Dai, chairman, president and CEO of VeriSilicon.