Digital Set-Top Box

ARM is at the heart of Set Top Box (STB) technology, enabling our silicon partners to integrate the IP functionality into a single System On Chip (SOC). Designers are free to choose from a family of Processors, Graphics Processors, System IP and Physical IP that provide the best performance, cost and power optimization.

Optimized ARM Set-Top Box Block Diagram

Optimized ARM Set-Top Box Reference Design

Overview

ARM Value Proposition

Relevant ARM Products

Connected Community

Resources

The STB no longer merely decodes video and audio. It has now become the primary Home entertainment device, with increased complexity and functionality, which must:

deal with multiple digital streams, simultaneously
manage the viewing, recording, storage, and sharing of rich media content
access the Internet, supporting multiple browsers
function as the Home gateway for Broadband and pay TV services
have a 3D graphical user interface
support for TV widgets
operate with much less dynamic and standby power

ARM Home solutions for STBs include a family of Processors and GPUs, from the Cortex-M0 that enable ultra low cost SoCs to the higher performance Cortex-A9 and Mali-400 HD GPU.

ARM NEON technology accelerates software audio and video CODECs downloaded from the internet.
ARM TrustZone technology provides the underlying foundation for strong security enabling DRM and payment services.
ARM CoreSight technology eases SoC and board bring-up and speeds time-to-market by enabling real-time high-speed trace of the multiple on-chip processors within a SoC.
ARM AMBA Interconnect maximizes the ARM CPU performance by providing a low-latency path to memory whilst its QoS (quality-of-service) feature balances the system loads within the SOC.
ARM Physical Logical IP, including Standard Cell Libraries and Power Management Kits at 28 nm to 65 nm, reduce cost and power usage by minimizing silicon area and leakage, while optimizing performance.
ARM Physical IP Embedded Memory at 28 nm to 65 nm create the high density on-chip memories on a SoC that can exceed 1 MByte today. The resultant memories can be optimized for both performance and power, while offering fault tolerance to increase manufacturing yields.
ARM Physical IP DDR PHY enables robust off-chip memory interface performance at high clock-speed and low power.

IP STBs and Hybrid STBs are connecting to the Internet and the ARM software ecosystem enables OEMs to quickly bring new products to market. Software such as Adobe Flash Player 10 is essential to delivering this rich compelling Web content on advanced consumer devices.