MaxLinear announced this week that it is collaborating with the Panasonic Semiconductor Business Group for DVB-T2 set-top boxes (STBs). The result will be a DVB-T2 front-end network interface module (NIM) that includes MaxLinear's MxL603 silicon tuner and Panasonic Semiconductor's MN88472 DVB-T2 demodulator LSI. Both single-channel and dual-channel versions are available. Power consumption is less than 720 mW per channel in DVB-T2 modes. 

“DVB-T2 market growth is accelerating and that puts a premium on time-to-market for STB manufacturers,” said Brian Sprague, vice president and general manager of the company’s Broadband and Consumer Products division. “This design collaboration provides our customers with a proven solution from two industry leaders. Panasonic Semiconductor's emphasis on low power consumption is a perfect match for our CMOS-based tuners that are the lowest-power solutions in the industry. In addition, both the MaxLinear and Panasonic Semiconductor devices have very high levels of integration that enable a fully featured system in a very small board footprint.”

The MxL603 CMOS silicon tuner offers a noise figure of 3.8 dB and includes MaxLinear's technology for advanced filtering of strong signals from adjacent channels. The Panasonic Semiconductor MN88472 DVB-T/C/T-2 demodulator IC includes an advanced LDPC algorithm with reliability information, P1 detection and ISI cancellation. The new release notes that sensitivity performance in the 256-QAM modes is very good and will enable “robust” reception in areas where extremely low signal strength is encountered.