Micronas Sells Consumer Line to Trident Microsystems

By Doug Lung
published

Readers may remember the excitement several years ago around the new 8-VSB demodulator developed by Richard Citta. The Linx demodulator offered the promise of reception in multipath environments where existing ATSC tuners failed. Unfortunately, before the cost of the computing power required to implement the chip dropped consumer price levels and demand increased enough to drive production of the demodulator, Linx sold the technology to Micronas. Micronas eventually offered an 8-VSB demodulator chip with improved multipath performance, but by this time LG had introduced its "5th generation" chip set. Its improved equalizer allowed reliable DTV reception in locations where no DTV reception was possible before. While Micronas appeared to have more success with its DVB-T products, I'm aware of only one USB DTV tuner using the Micronas 8-VSB demodulator--the Pinnacle Systems (now owned by Hauppauge) HD Mini Stick. I don't know of any NTIA-approved set-top boxes that use a Micronas demodulator.

In light of this, it isn't surprising that Micronas decided to close its consumer division. Fortunately, an agreement was worked out with Trident Microsystems for acquiring that division. The agreement will save about 80 jobs in Germany and those of 100 employees elsewhere.

Trident Microsystems is well known in the consumer electronics semiconductor market. One thing they could do to improve their standing in the ATSC development community would be to allow open-source software that permits the Micronas ATSC demodulator to be used with Linux to be released to the public. Developer Devin Heitmueller, with a lot of work and help from engineers at Pinnacle and Micronas, created a driver that allows the Pinnacle HD Mini-stick with the Micronas chip to be used under Linux. Unfortunately, after all this work, management at Micronas did not allow him to release the code. Ideally, Trident will quickly reverse this decision. ATSC demodulators from competitors LG, Samsung and Auvitek, to name a few, are well supported in Linux.

Your comments and story leads are always appreciated! Drop me a note at dlung@transmitter.com.

Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.