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BCM3520's Superior Performance and Integration Enable Cable and Local Broadcasters to Cost Effectively Offer Consumers Superior Digital TV Picture and Sound Quality
IRVINE, Calif., April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation, (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions enabling broadband communications, today announced an advanced, single-chip digital TV (DTV) receiver that establishes a new standard of performance for digital TV reception in both cable and local broadcast television environments. The Broadcom® BCM3520's superior performance, coupled with the integration of both analog and digital functions and a "plug-and-play" feature, improves the reliability and reduces the cost of delivering digital television programming to consumers.
The BCM3520 implements a unique system architecture that enables the receiver to reliably acquire, track and demodulate signals in the presence of interference and a wide range of varying multi-path channel conditions with the presence of noise. Based on independent testing by Communications Research Centre (CRC) in Canada, the BCM3520 exceeds current levels of VSB performance for reliable signal reception. "We have subjected Broadcom's BCM3520 to an extensive list of test conditions and the performance under a variety of severe multi-path channel conditions is remarkable," said Yiyan Wu, Principal Research Scientist at Communications Research Centre (CRC), Canada. "The BCM3520 has acquired and tracked signals under fast dynamic multi-path and fading channel test conditions under which all other VSB receivers that we've tested have failed."
"We are extremely pleased with the outcome of the tests conducted by CRC," said Brian Sprague, Broadcom's Senior Director of Marketing, Broadband Communications Business Group. "The availability of digital TV receiver technology that offers reliable signal reception is essential for consumer acceptance of digital terrestrial TV broadcasting."
The BCM3520 is a highly integrated digital TV receiver chip compatible with both the North American digital terrestrial broadcast television standard, or the Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) standard, and the digital cable television standard. The receiver chip is capable of receiving all standard definition and high-definition digital formats (SDTV/HDTV) and provides cable "plug-and-play" capability. The "plug-and-play" feature allows for the development of digital cable-ready televisions that can plug directly into a cable system and receive analog and most digital cable services, without an external set-top box.
"We have focused on reducing overall system cost by integrating the functionality required by the "plug-and-play" market into a single chip, as well as achieving new levels of system performance for the HDTV market," said Sprague. "The BCM3520 will allow TV or set-top box manufacturers to provide consumers with products that offer both the features they expect with the performance they value."
BCM3520 Features
The BCM3520 is a "plug-and-play" DTV receiver. The chip contains a digital receiver compatible with both North American digital cable television and digital terrestrial broadcast television standards. The chip contains a digital National Television Systems Committee (NTSC) demodulator that allows television and set-top box manufacturers to offer consumers the ability to receive NTSC analog broadcast signals as well as HDTV. An out-of-band QPSK receiver is also included for compatibility to North American digital cable standards and to meet the needs of the "plug & play" requirements. The BCM3520 also integrates a complete on-chip stereo audio decoder providing a stereo left/right, mono or secondary audio programming (SAP) output via a pair of integrated high-precision audio digital to analog converters (DACs). This feature eliminates the need for additional off-chip components.
The BCM3520, when combined with Broadcom's recently announced BCM7038, offers television and set-top box manufacturers a complete digital TV solution. The BCM7038 is a highly integrated HDTV/PVR chip that offers superior digital picture and sound quality and new advanced capabilities not yet available on HDTV systems.
Pricing and Availability
The BCM3520 is available in sample quantities today. It is priced at $20 each in 10,000 piece quantities and is packaged in a 144-pin PQFP.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services. We design, develop and supply complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions incorporating digital, analog and radio frequency (RF) technologies, as well as related hardware and software system-level applications. Our diverse product portfolio addresses every major broadband communications market and includes solutions for digital cable and satellite set-top boxes; high definition television (HDTV); cable and DSL modems and residential gateways; high-speed transmission and switching for local, metropolitan, wide area and storage networking; home and wireless networking; cellular and terrestrial wireless communications; Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway and telephony systems; broadband network and security processors; and SystemI/O™ server solutions. These technologies and products support our core mission: Connecting everything®.
Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 1-949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.
Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the BCM3520 and BCM7038 product family include, but are not limited to, general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for digital cable and television applications; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; our ability to scale our operations in response to increases in demand for our products and services; the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability, as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory; retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; the loss of a key customer; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a timely manner; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the effects of new and emerging technologies; changes in our product or customer mix; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts; the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations, particularly in light of recent events; the effects of natural disasters, public health emergencies, international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.
Broadcom®, the pulse logo, Connecting everything®, and SystemI/O™, are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
Broadcom Trade Press Contact
Laura Brandlin
Director of Marketing Communications
949-926-5108
lbrandlin@broadcom.com
Broadcom Business Press Contact
Bill Blanning
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
949-926-5555
blanning@broadcom.com
Broadcom Technical Contact
Brian Sprague
Director of Marketing
949-926-5262
brians@broadcom.com
Broadcom Investor Relations Contact
T. Peter Andrew
Sr. Director, Investor Relations
949-926-5663
andrewtp@broadcom.com
SOURCE Broadcom Corporation
-0- 04/22/2004
/CONTACT: Trade Press, Laura Brandlin, Director of Marketing
Communications, +1-949-926-5108, lbrandlin@broadcom.com, or Business Press,
Bill Blanning, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, +1-949-926-5555,
blanning@broadcom.com, or Technical, Brian Sprague, Director of Marketing,
+1-949-926-5262, brians@broadcom.com, or Investor Relations, T. Peter Andrew
Sr., Director, Investor Relations, +1-949-926-5663, andrewtp@broadcom.com, all
of Broadcom Corporation/
/Web site: http://www.broadcom.com /
(BRCM)
CO: Broadcom Corporation
ST: California
IN: CPR CSE TVN MLM
SU: PDT
BM-RB
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1721 04/22/2004 09:00 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com
