Hybrid silicon tuners help TVs kick the CAN
October 01, 2008
TV manufacturers must switch to different tuner architectures to meet evolving consumer and technical demands.
As TV transitions into a new digital era, an explosion of
cable, satellite, terrestrial, and Internet content delivery technologies has
hit the market. While these delivery mechanisms present additional options for
consumers, the end viewing experience is still largely controlled by tuner
performance. TV manufacturers must address critical specifications such as A74,
NorDig, CableLabs, Boxer, digital sensitivity, adjacent channel rejection, and
phase noise to meet terrestrial and cable requirements.
TV manufacturers must switch to different tuner architectures
to meet evolving consumer and technical demands. Despite popular belief, the
question is not digital versus analog. That transition is set. Analog tuners
are making way for hybrid analog/digital tuners and later digital-only tuners
in the 2011-2012 timeframe.
Until then, analog TV reception is still mandatory even in
the United States for multiple reasons. First, U.S. multiple system operators
are required to continue analog TV broadcasts for the basic network channels,
including ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. The FCC mandated this to avoid
disenfranchising cable subscribers who do not own digital TVs or digital
set-top boxes. Furthermore, in anticipation of viewers connecting their new TVs
to their older analog equipment such as VCRs and DVD players, TV companies are
assuming that viewers will hang on to these analog products throughout their
estimated 8-10 year lifetime.
Given this state of affairs, the question is not analog versus
digital. The real question is CAN versus silicon.
Performance and the cliff effect
Digital reception introduces issues surrounding tuner
performance and signal reception quality. With analog, TV signals deteriorate
slowly over distances, but that is not the case with digital. Digital signals
are either received or not whether the TV is on or off. If the TV is too far
from the broadcast transmitter, viewers will only see a blank screen. Likewise,
buildings, hills, and other geographical features can obstruct digital TV
signals. This dramatic and sudden picture loss is referred to as the cliff
effect.
CAN tuners' limited reception performance exaggerates the
cliff effect. With 3 dBm better sensitivity compared to leading CAN tuners,
certain silicon tuners can counter the cliff effect and be situated farther
from digital transmitters without picture degradation. In fact, some silicon
tuner-enabled TVs can be positioned twice as far away as equivalent CAN tuners
and still receive quality signals.
The cliff effect poses an imminent challenge to the
television industry as cable and satellite access is not guaranteed. For the
digital transition to succeed, silicon tuners are needed to seamlessly capture
digital signals over larger coverage areas and provide continuous,
uninterrupted transmission.
This requirement applies to legacy analog as well as digital reception.
At 3 dBm, the signal quality of a silicon tuner surpasses that of a CAN tuner,
as illustrated in Figure 1. The picture is cleaner and crisper and contains
better color with fewer artifacts, providing higher-quality TV services.
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The shrinking circuit board
Beyond the digital transition, evolving consumer demands are
forcing TV manufacturers to evaluate silicon tuners. Consumer tastes call for
bigger, flatter, and lighter TV sets. Bulky CAN tuners cannot meet the trend as
TV chassis shrink in depth, even as they expand in screen size. At some point,
the desire to have increasingly thinner screens will prohibit CAN tuner use. To
keep up with slimming flat-panel TV screens, TV product developers must work
with constantly shrinking circuit boards.
During the past few years, hybrid analog/digital tuner module
designs have provided the extra performance needed for digital TV and met TV
manufacturers' requirements for analog, terrestrial, and cable reception. TV
manufacturers sometimes add application-specific gain or filtering between the
tuner module and the connector to enhance receiver performance. These types of
designs frequently include a low-noise amplifier that provides additional gain
to achieve better sensitivity in digital mode. CAN tuners that do not integrate
the video and sound IF needed for analog TV reception are typically added as
separate components.
TV manufacturers can achieve significant space savings with
silicon tuners that incorporate these components. Silicon tuners come in a
compact size – as small as 7 mm x 7 mm (~.25" x .25"), flat
form factor, and depth no more than a few pieces of paper thick. Conversely,
the height of CAN tuners either forces manufacturers to relocate them into
separate boxes, which requires more cabling and components to be added to the
home entertainment center, or prevents their use altogether.
Silicon tuners' small size also benefits TV applications that
need small packaging due to shrinking screen sizes. Most small-screen TVs such
as kitchen or bedroom units must add digital reception to the existing analog
reception. This increases the size of the CAN tuner, making it difficult to fit
into shrinking form factors. TV manufacturers can avoid this problem by
migrating to silicon tuners as an enabling technology.
Reducing manufacturing complexity
CAN tuners are unique in size, material, and soldering
requirements compared to other components on a PCB. TV manufacturers need
specialized equipment to position CAN tuners and solder them onto a board. In
many cases, CAN tuners are soldered by hand, which increases complexity,
decreases yield, and necessitates specialized handling equipment and
manufacturing processes.
In contrast, silicon tuners require no special handling or
materials. Manufacturers can leverage the same equipment used to mount other
integrated chips on a circuit board, reducing complexity and cost while
increasing yield.
The semiconductor process technology at the heart of silicon
tuners also features much tighter tolerances than CAN tuners. This is
especially true for the coils within CAN tuners that need to be adjusted
manually during manufacturing. As a result, CAN tuners are particularly susceptible
to product-to-product variance.
CAN tuners usually comprise up to five large components and
up to 150 small components. As a CAN tuner ages, its individual components wear
at different rates. For example, coils age differently than resistors, which
age differently than capacitors. This creates unpredictable reception and
reduces functionality over time, which could ultimately degrade or eliminate
signal reception in certain environments. Consumers demand better longevity as
the costs of TV sets increase and feature sets expand.
On the other hand, silicon tuners are robust semiconductor
devices with an extremely tight operating behavior that can withstand the test
of time. Silicon tuners acceptable to the TV industry use a single, monolithic
die with no separate pieces, meaning that little change is experienced over
time due to aging components. This ensures tighter performance variations for
TV sets and results in longer overall product lifetime.
It should be noted that some silicon tuners do not use a
monolithic die and contain several different components within the chip
package. Like the CAN tuners, these will wear differently over time and
possibly raise some vibration concerns. Not all silicon tuners are created
equal, and many are not suitable for use in TVs.
Reducing design costs across regions
Manufacturers cannot scale effectively to worldwide broadcast
requirements without minimizing the costs between platforms across different
regions. The ultimate goal is a worldwide platform that caters to the many
complex regional variations for analog and digital TV, as well as the different
transmitted bandwidths for audio and video.
With broadcast standards varying from region to region and
the digital conversion occurring at different times, TV tuners applicable to
worldwide standards help TV manufacturers reduce inventory and manufacturing
costs or at least minimize any possible redesign necessary for different
markets. Because silicon tuners can be used in Europe, the United States, and
Asia, the tuner no longer presents an obstacle to meeting regional TV
requirements.
The challenge that continually confounds CAN tuners is how to
address the multifarious variations of worldwide TV standards. Many European
countries transmit channels that consume 8 MHz of bandwidth per channel, while
North America uses only 6 MHz. Other countries that use Phase Alternating Line
(PAL) B require 7 MHz channels. Additionally, countries broadcast audio within
varying bandwidth, ranging from 4.5 MHz all the way to 6.5 MHz. The modulation
also varies with one standard requiring AM modulation. In addition, the
international community uses different analog TV standards, as shown in Table
1.
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This complicated chart only covers analog TV standards
– and only from a very high level. Digital TV is overlaid on the same
channel bandwidth within each country but requires different standards
throughout the world, including Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) in
North America; Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) in Europe, Taiwan, and
Australia; Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) in Japan and
Brazil; and Digital Multimedia Broadcast-Terrestrial/Handheld (DMB-T/H) in
China. These various standards demand a level of flexibility that a
fixed-function CAN tuner either cannot support or requires additional circuitry
to support each standard. Therefore, CAN tuners must be regionally specific in
order to be cost-effective.
Silicon tuners can deliver one chip for all regions
worldwide, regardless if the transmission is analog or digital. This simplifies
product design, enabling a single platform for multiple markets instead of
different chips for different regions. The chip for Europe will work in Asia
and in North and South America because of its design architecture, which
includes a DSP that changes the filter characteristics between different
standards, enabling optimal digital filters for each mode at no additional
cost. In the end, silicon tuners handle worldwide broadcast standards,
simplifying inventory management and costs.
Until now, adding broadcast TV reception capabilities to an
IP-based audio/video delivery system required regional standards to be
introduced, negating the worldwide reach of IP. Silicon platforms enable a
single worldwide TV architecture to be merged into a system receiving IP
services, creating new applications not possible with CAN tuners.
DSP functionality enables flexibility
Manufacturers can reap other benefits from a DSP-based
architecture. In this architecture, a DSP runs firmware that defines tuner
performance, characteristics, and behavior. This allows tuners to be adjusted
for specific needs, including customer differentiation, evolving customer
expectations, new broadcast requirements, new broadcast standards, or
nonstandard signals that are often the bane of fixed-function tuners.
Independent facilities, TV companies, and standards
authorities throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States have thoroughly
field-tested this silicon tuner design. During early testing, any corner case conditions
were resolved by modifying the firmware running on the DSP, allowing the device
to be brought to market quickly and efficiently.
The DSP also enables critical levels of performance not
possible with traditional silicon tuners. TV applications demand extreme
performance and strict reliability across some of the most stringent standards
of any consumer application. All TV companies maintain their own requirements
that can be far more onerous than those set forward by standards authorities.
While CAN tuners have fixed filters that approximate the ideal with analog
hardware components that deteriorate over time, DSP-based silicon tuners
provide filtering that replaces these components with a tight digital
implementation.
Finally, DSP performance can be used to change filtering
dynamically. The DSP constantly monitors the RF front end, and filter
characteristics applied to the incoming RF signal can be changed depending on
the condition of that signal, as shown in Figure 2. For example, a filter can
be changed as the analog RF signal deteriorates. More low-pass filtering can be
applied as a counter-measure to provide a better quality display than possible
with a CAN tuner under these conditions.
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As the digital living room offers more and more sources of
music, video, and other advanced data services, consumers are expecting these
feature sets to be seamlessly integrated into their TVs. Today, IP delivery of
these services is separate from TV services. Even the latest Apple TV and Roku
boxes expect a TV to be the display device but do not integrate the TV function
or vice versa. This will change as silicon tuner technology is integrated into
these systems.
User experience applications
Eliminating manufacturing complexity is not enough to push
manufacturers to "kick the CAN." In the end, consumer demand drives the market.
Brands will differentiate their TV product lines through silicon tuners'
advanced feature sets. Consumers are taking notice, forcing top brands to
consider speeding the adoption cycle for silicon tuners or risk losing market
share in a tight global market.
Silicon tuners can improve the overall TV experience by
delivering high-quality pictures and unique features to address common consumer
demands, as demonstrated by two applications in which Xceive's DSP-based
silicon tuners are deployed.
ChannelVista provides multiple Picture-in-Picture (PiP)
capabilities with virtual tuners that can display more than one channel on the
same screen with only one tuner. By time-slicing the tuner across multiple
channels, the TV System-on-Chip (SoC) can update the screen with more than one
channel at the same time. This gives the illusion of PIP without the cost of
additional tuners.
Another implementation is a visual channel list that displays
simultaneous video from all the viewer's favorite channels on the same screen.
The viewer can then select a favorite channel based on real-time video and not
generic descriptions. This fine-tunes the viewing experience and allows the
viewer to avoid changing to a channel during an advertisement.
In dual-tuner environments, ChannelVista enhances the viewer
experience further by providing one real-time main Picture-out-of-Picture (PoP)
and any number of sub broadcast PIP channels simultaneously shown around or alongside
it, creating a rich media center application.
QuickTune likewise leverages silicon tuners' ultra-fast
per-signal detection to provide a complete channel scan of more than 100
channels in less than 3-5 seconds. Whereas a traditional CAN tuner's channel
detection time is 150 milliseconds, a silicon tuner is 30x faster at 5
milliseconds. With this technology, viewers can switch from one picture to
another quickly and complete channel scan setup in a short amount of time.
Making the paradigm shift
To maintain TV's relevancy in the modern digital living room
and support the smooth transition from analog to digital, engineers face a
paradigm shift to meet new digital requirements. The traditional "switch"
moniker is a misnomer, as reality calls for a gentle transition from analog to
hybrid to digital. This requires higher-end digital TV reception while still
appealing to a cost-sensitive mass market. At the same time, consumers are
demanding sharper images with more color and advanced broadcast features.
These challenges are prompting design engineers to
accommodate next-generation silicon tuner technology. Unlike traditional bulky
CAN tuners, silicon tuners can address the problems surrounding signal
reception quality and tuner performance. In addition to delivering better user
experience applications, silicon tuners enable thinner TV board architectures
to meet consumer demand for thinner and flatter TV screens.
In today's multimedia-hungry world, hybrid silicon tuners
deliver the top performance, quality, and features required for TV markets
worldwide.
Xceive
408-486-5610
[email protected]
www.Xceive.com
