STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and a leading manufacturer of High-Definition (HD) and Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) set-top-box ICs, has released details of its innovative STi8K(TM) architecture addressing future Systems-on-Chips (SoCs) for the Digital Home.
Based on the latest ARMv8-A cores, STi8K(TM) SoCs will further enhance the available Cannes/STiH3 (FHD[1]/UHD HEVC Client-Box), Monaco/STiH4 (FHD/UHD HEVC Server/Gateways), and Alicante/STiD12 (DOCSIS®) product families, providing, in combination with them, a smooth and future-proof industry transition from 32-bit to 64-bit computing.
"The consumer industry has initiated the transition from 32- to 64-bit computing in the mobile market," said Gian Luca Bertino, Executive Vice President and General Manager Digital Convergence Group, STMicroelectronics. "New upcoming, highly demanding technologies, such as DOCSIS 3.1 or full-featured 10-bit High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) in Ultra High Definition at 60 frames per second, will drive this same transition in the Digital Home market. We have already built a solid, fast time-to-market and future-proof foundation with our Cannes, Monaco, and Alicante families; our new STi8K architecture is the next evolutionary step for our winning product families and brings 64-bit computing to the digital home."
Optimized for ST's 28nm Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) and smaller-geometry manufacturing processes, the STi8K(TM) architecture leverages the increased data throughput, the extended memory addressing, and the reduced power consumption of the latest ARM® Cortex(TM)-A53 and Cortex(TM)-A57 64-bit processor technology, combining high performance and reliability with outstanding energy efficiency to meet end-user and eco-design requirements, such as the US Energy Star and the EU's EuP (Energy using Products) directive.
Tom Cronk, Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, at ARM added, "We share ST's vision for the future of the digital home market. Full-color Ultra HD applications together with ultra-high bandwidth home-network-access systems made possible with DOCSIS 3.1 technologies will transform the home-entertainment experience. Our long-term collaboration with ST, including its recent integration of our latest 64-bit processors, together with our mutual investment in software-ecosystem development, for example through Linaro, are key building blocks that will help make more advanced and immersive media experiences a reality.
ST's STi8K(TM) architecture features industry-unique Faroudja® transcoding, managing, for example, 8 HD streams and advanced hardware-assisted networking capabilities, to enable extremely advanced scenarios for distributing multimedia content, as required by tomorrow's satellite, cable and hybrid home servers and gateways.
With its support for Ultra High Definition up to 60 frames per second with wide gamut and 10-bit color, as required by the ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, and high-performance full-frame-rate graphics based on OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenGL ES 3.0 standards, users will enjoy a true Ultra HD immersive digital-viewing experience, including stunning realism for live-action sports and gaming, allowing operator branding at native 4K resolution.
The STi8K(TM) incorporates the newly defined HDMI 2.0, running at the highest data throughput of 6Gbps per channel, together with the latest HDCP 2.2 (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) security and DisplayPort v1.2, to provide the high-speed connectivity to full color and full-frame-rate Ultra HD screens.
"Our recently launched Cannes, Monaco, and Alicante product families are enjoying strong momentum and have positioned ST as a leader in Ultra HD and HEVC technologies," added Bertino. "By adopting these families our customers are securing time-to-market advantages in their introduction of tomorrow's digital home."
In Las Vegas during the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), ST will host extensive demonstrations of its technologies and SoCs for the Digital Home in a private hotel suite for select customers. The demos will include DOCSIS Home Gateways and Cable Modems, as well as Full HD and Ultra HD Set Top Boxes demonstrating full interoperability of ST SoCs with all the major providers of HEVC encoders in the marketplace.