Saankhya Labs launches SDR-based TV demodulator chip
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 12 November 2009, 19:43 IST   |    1 Comments
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Saankhya Labs launches SDR-based TV demodulator chip
Bangalore: Saankhya Labs, a Bangalore based fabless chip startup, has unveiled its universal TV demodulator chip based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) architecture, and targeted at World TV and PC-TV receiver markets. Built on an application specific signal processor (ASSP) platform, the product christened Pruthvi - is made up of programmable digital signal processors, and is the first demodulation chip to enable global TV chassis, the company claimed. The product prototype that supports all standards on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) platform is ready and has been demonstrated to six major TV companies in Japan, reports EE Times. According to Saankhya, the addressable market for universal TV demodulation will be in excess of 500 million units (MU) by 2014, of which the digital TV (DTV) market is 82 MU, the hybrid set-top box is 83 MU, PC-TV is 20 MU, and mobile TV will move to 300 MU in 2013 from 20 MU this year. According to Vishwa Kayargadde, CEO of Saankhya, Pruthvi reduces the bill-of-materials (BoM) cost of TV chassis by supporting multiple standards on a single chip and manufacturers can achieve significant savings by reducing the number of designs to be manufactured. "By using it, PC-TV dongle manufacturers can support seamless operation across different regions for nomadic users," Kayargadde said. Saankhya used the SDR approach to the cost-competitive consumer electronics market like DTV, saying that as semiconductor technology moves deeper into sub-micron geometries (65, 45 and 32-nanometer) the SDR architecture starts becoming cost-effective. "The flexibility that SDR approach allows is extremely well-suited for the TV market due to the variety of standards and this approach allows field-upgradability of demodulation software," Kayargadde said.

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