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STMicroelectronics and ARM team up to power home entertainment

ST adopts ARM Cortex-A9 multicore processor to deliver high-performance, power-efficient SOCs for HDTV set-top boxes.

-- EDN, 10/29/2009 5:25:00 AM

STMicroelectronics and ARM have announced that ST has adopted the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, in addition to the Mali-400 graphics processor, for its upcoming set-top-box and digital-TV system-on-chip (SOC) ICs.

The Cortex-A9 MPCore processor provides ST with the scalable high performance required to enable the high-bandwidth broadband and broadcast content being streamed into homes, while improving power efficiency when compared to alternative solutions. The adoption of ARM technology enables ST to build upon experience accumulated during its SOC development with its ST-40 processor, and it also signals the company’s intention to base its next-generation range of HDTV SOCs on ARM technology. That represents a continuation of ST's experience with ARM with wireless, computer, automotive, and industrial applications. By adopting the Cortex-A9 MPCore processor for home-entertainment markets, ST is also able to access the software ecosystem around the Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, including Adobe Flash technology and Web browsers such as Opera, to provide multimedia performance.

"Building our next-generation HDTV consumer devices around the high-performance ARM architecture will enable us to continue to deliver best-in-class devices for our customers, while providing a simple migration route from our existing ST-40 based chips," said Philippe Lambinet, executive vice president of the home entertainment and display group at STMicroelectronics. "In addition, our customers now gain access to the broad ARM ecosystem of support around the processors."

"The adoption of ARM technology by ST, one of the world leaders for home-entertainment ICs, is a highly visible demonstration of the growing momentum behind our Cortex processors and Mali GPUs (Graphics Processor Units) in applications such as DTV and set-top boxes," said Mike Inglis, executive vice president of the processor division at ARM.

"Sky welcomes the collaboration between ST and ARM to provide cost-effective, low-power set-top-box technology,” said Roger Lambert of BSkyB. "Reducing power consumption across our business is a key pillar of Sky’s strategy—utilizing the lowest power technology in our set-top boxes is a vital element of this ongoing strategy."

ST has also licensed the ARM Mali-400 MP multicore scalable graphics processing unit (GPU) technology to meet the growing demand for graphical user interfaces and the needs of increasingly sophisticated web-based services. The Mali-400 GPU enables ST to provide 1080p 3-D user interfaces conforming to the Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 API (application programming interface).

“Flash Player 10 is essential to deliver rich, compelling Web content on advanced consumer devices,” said Danny Winokur, senior director of business development of the platform business unit at Adobe. "ST and ARM are enabling the underlying hardware platform, based on Open GLES 2.0, and the high-performance ARM Cortex-A9 processor, to deliver the full Flash experience to consumer entertainment systems."

The first ST devices for home entertainment applications integrating the Cortex-A9 MPCore and Mali-400MP will be available in mid-2010.

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