Silicon tuners key to maintaining TV’s starring role in the modern digital living room

As TV transitions into a new digital era, an explosion of applications surrounding content delivery — including cable, satellite, terrestrial and the Internet — are emerging. While these delivery mechanisms present additional options to consumers, the end viewing experience is still largely controlled by tuner performance.

To support these new applications, TV manufacturers must also transition tuner architectures. The question, however, is not digital versus analog. That transition is set. Hybrid analog/digital tuners are already replacing analog tuners and will later develop into digital-only tuner solutions in the 2011/2012 timeframe. The real question for TV manufacturers is CAN versus silicon.

Currently, production-proven, second-generation silicon tuners exist that exceed CAN tuner performance and picture quality, while delivering additional benefits and differentiators at competitive price points. Regardless of the tuner solution selected, manufacturers should ensure that the end-result drives the ultimate TV experience for viewers and supports next-generation features and functionality to keep TV relevant in today’s digital living rooms. The following will serve as a guide to selecting a best-in-class tuner solution to support manufacturer priorities during this critical stage of the broadcast evolution

Time to kick the CAN

Although CAN tuner modules are still found in most TVs today, its size, power consumption and many discrete parts render its performance inferior to that of a silicon tuner. In fact, a single CAN tuner can consist of nearly 150 components.

CAN tuners use many non-semiconductor technologies that define their performance. For example, the inductive coils in CAN tuners need to be adjusted during the manufacturing process and are particularly vulnerable to product-to-product variances. As the tuner ages, different parts wear out at different times, eventually resulting in the loss of capabilities, including signal reception in certain environments. At times, CANs have fallen outside of the expected operating range to result in TV recalls in the field. This is unacceptable as consumers demand better longevity as the cost of TV sets increase and feature-sets expand.

The ideal silicon tuner for a leading TV manufacturer is a hybrid solution that facilitates the digital transition by offering optimum image quality that meets consumer demands for sharper images with more color and advanced broadcast features at a lower cost.

The bulky CAN tuner is also power-hungry. At less than 950 mW power consumption, the leading silicon tuner solution consumes substantially less power than currently available CAN modules that are typically in the 1350 mW range. The silicon tuner also presents an enormous space savings advantage by integrating all hybrid TV receiver functions, including the analog demodulator, in a small surface mount package that can measure as small as 7 x 7 mm - while still meeting the rigorous requirements of leading TV manufacturers.

The bottom line is this: Manufacturers are still using outdated CAN tuners by default despite the fact that these tuners consume too much power, consist of hundreds of components and are costly and time-consuming to manufacture and test. New monolithic silicon tuner ICs are showing the ability to meet the requirements for hybrid analog/digital TV designs on a much smaller form factor with substantially lower power consumption.

Beyond the digital transition, evolving consumer demands are forcing TV manufacturers to evaluate silicon tuners. Consumer tastes call for bigger, flatter and lighter TV sets. Bulky CAN tuners cannot meet the trend as the TV chassis shrink in depth even as they expand in screen size. At some point, the desire to have the screen so thin excludes the use of a CAN tuner by design.

Silicon is now here

Now is also the time for TV manufacturers to bridge the gap between extinct CAN tuner architecture and the next generation’s silicon-based TV tuner architecture. While the FCC’s deadline of February 17, 2009, looms for terrestrial analog to be replaced by digital broadcasting, the requirement exists for U.S. cable operators to continue to broadcast analog “network channels” until 2012. This makes the surge for digital-only TV’s less significant, and the next-generation hybrid TV a significant market. To address the three-year gap in the U.S as well as the varying stages of digital transition in European regions, TV makers (i.e. Samsung, Sony, LG, etc.) need a hybrid TV solution that meets consumer demand for high definition picture quality as well as worldwide digital transition requirements.

The U.S. digital migration means that televisions need a hybrid tuner to receive local broadcast signals. At the same time, TV companies are struggling to lower product costs to meet consumer expectations while facing pressure for better performance and more differentiated features. As consumers continue to push for higher picture quality, increased applications and flatter, larger and lower power screens, it is easy to see why CAN tuners are on their way out- and why silicon tuners will be in high demand.

Previously, CAN tuners and previous versions of silicon tuners faced difficulties in meeting all of the simultaneous demands of analog and digital, terrestrial and cable, tuning and demodulation at the levels required by TV manufacturers. This is no longer the case.

Not all silicon tuners are created equal

There are many silicon tuner solutions available today but not all are created equal. In a highly competitive market with emerging TV manufacturers following closely at the heels of established tier-one brands, silicon TV tuners should be evaluated and put through rigorous due diligence for both the pending digital transition as well as for the next generation applications for the modern digital living room.

Silicon tuner technology is a robust semiconductor device with extremely tight operating behavior that can withstand the test of time. Silicon tuners acceptable to the TV industry use a single, monolithic die with no separate “pieces,” meaning little change is experienced over time due to aging components. This ensures tighter performance variations for TV sets and results in a longer overall product lifetime.

A few silicon tuners may not be a monolithic die and may have components within the chip package - just like the old CAN tuners. These will again wear differently over time, and may also have some vibration concerns. Not all silicon tuners are created equal and the majority is not suitable for use in TVs.

Today’s silicon tuners have unprecedented picture quality. Consumers have much sharper and cleaner images than ever before with a CAN tuner, even if the

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