BANGALORE, INDIA: Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) announced a new DOCSIS 3.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) product that supports cable set-top-boxes (STB) with both MPEG-TS (transport stream) and IP capabilities.

This latest addition to the Puma 5 family provides equipment manufacturers with the ability to create a new breed of hybrid STB products. STBs with TI’s Puma 5 solution enable cable operators to extend their current digital TV products with compelling new services such as programmed and IPTV while minimizing new infrastructure investment.

The newest member of the Puma 5 family, the TNETC4820, builds upon TI’s current portfolio of DOCSIS 3.0 compliant products, allowing OEMs to quickly deliver STBs and other cable TV equipment with the higher transfer speeds of DOCSIS 3.0, seamlessly supporting voice, video and data services.

To facilitate home networking and data-centric applications like IPTV, the Puma 5 architecture includes high-speed interfaces including Gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0. In addition, wireless networking, powerline technologies and advanced coaxial networking solutions can be easily integrated into the platform. The Puma 5 family includes a high-performance VoIP subsystem ensuring high quality-of-service (QoS) voice even in the presence of significant data traffic.

“TI’s TNETC4820 is compatible with both legacy QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) cable video and IP-based data streams, and can function either as a transport or video gateway into the residence,” said G. Mohan, Business Development Manager, Texas Instruments India. “Supporting both STB and gateway solutions, the TNETC4820 helps operators change the way end-consumers receive video to the home and distribute video inside the digital home by allowing operators to deliver video over IP concurrently with their current video over MPEG distribution system.”

To provide further value, Puma 5 based video gateways have the ability to translate any video signal into an IP message allowing operators to deliver video through home networking technology to low-cost STBs. This flexibility allows the equipment to accept legacy video, IP data or both from the network and distribute multiple channels throughout the home. As a result, operators can rapidly roll-out new multimedia services like IPTV as marketplace demand continues to grow.

With a DOCSIS 3.0 compliant video front end, TI’s Puma 5 can enable a new range of video and transport gateway applications by leveraging a DOCSIS fat pipe in the upstream. New applications enabled by Puma 5’s video and transport gateway include place shifting capabilities, video sharing with mobile devices networked to the home and improved and faster interactive gaming. 

The TNETC4820 takes advantage of a scalable multimedia processing architecture which includes video input/output (I/O) capabilities for easy expansion and enhancement of the system’s video handling facilities. The TNETC4820’s configurable DOCSIS 3.0 subsystem can support as many as four upstream and up to 8 downstream channels, or various combinations of DOCSIS and/or MPEG video channels. The TNETC4820’s video I/O facilities allow the number of downstream channels to be easily scaled upward to as many as eight. 

The TNETC4820 joins the already extensive Puma 5 family of DOCSIS 3.0 chipsets. The current TNETC4800, TNETC4810 and TNETC4830 chipsets all provide high-speed DOCSIS 3.0 line speeds, flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness, but with slight variations for specific applications.