C-Cube debuts broadband chips

C-Cube Microsystems has introduced an integrated family of front-end chips that support all major world cable standards and make it possible for manufacturers to design single cable modem or set-top box products that can be deployed on any two-way network.

The chips were designed in San Diego by a team of engineers acquired last year when Cisco bought TV/COM, said strategic marketing manager Brian Johnson.

"If you look at the volume of shipments in the satellite QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) receiver space, their design is probably shipped in the vast majority of satellite set-top boxes," Johnson said. "They've taken that expertise and carried it over into this next-generation family of products."

The chipmaker is introducing two initial members of the family.

"One is targeted at cable modems and one is targeted at cable set-top boxes," he explained.

Both allow manufacturers to create an integrated two-way set-top box, "but, in addition to the cable modem, the set-top has a one-way in-band video QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) demodulator," he said.

Johnson said he is confident that C-Cube is "really the first (manufacturer) who has done a chip that addressees all those standards in one part to the extent that you can design a board with a fixed set of external hardware that can be deployed in all these regions of the world without a change to the hardware."

Included in the standards to which the chips comply are DOCSIS, EuroDOCSIS and DVB in-band cable modem standards, he said.

C-Cube's initial customers, he said, are "lined up for this chip but we are not able to disclose them" because "there are not too many suppliers of this type of technology those customers are dependent on that limited source. They don't want to announce it until they're in production with it."

Headend providers, on the other hand, have no such qualms, he said, citing integration into gear by Cisco Systems, Harmonic and Scientific-Atlanta.