Silicon Labs says the receiver family's unprecedented single-chip integration can enable a total system savings of up to 75 percent compared to more complex two-chip solutions. The architecture is said to provide a fully optimized, integrated signal path from RF antenna input to demodulated digital or analog baseband output, enabling superior RF performance.
In addition, the single-chip design eliminates the sensitive intermediate-frequency PCB traces used to connect a tuner to a separate demodulator, reducing the likelihood of system noise interference and degraded performance. The receivers offer ‘excellent’ front-end linearity and channel selectivity, resulting in better reception in crowded spectrum areas.
Strong blocking performance is especially critical in urban settings where many undesired blocking channels can reduce the number of channels received. James Stansberry, general manager of Silicon Labs' broadcast video products, said the company has broken new ground in RF integration by demonstrating the ability to combine a silicon TV tuner with analog and digital TV demodulators into a single-chip receiver solution that enhances system performance and simplifies TV and STB designs.
To ease application development, the Si2185/15/13/11 receiver family is supported by a unified software application programming interface (API) that encompasses both tuner and demodulator functions. This unified API promises to simplify software design compared to competing two-chip solutions, which require separate APIs for the tuner and demodulator. In addition, all members of Silicon Labs' receiver family are pin and software compatible, which helps reduce the cost of developing TV and STB products for multiple markets.
For more information about Silicon Labs' TV receiver products and to purchase samples and development tools, visit www.silabs.com/pr/tv-receiver
