IBM today entered the growing market for digital television with a set-top box design kit that combines hardware and software components into one easy-to-use package. The tightly integrated design is the first step in the company's plan to develop a custom chip that blends set-top box functions on a single sliver of silicon.

The new set-top box design kit, and ultimately the single-chip solution, will be sold to equipment manufacturers who will add their own customized functions.

IBM's Set-Top Box Reference Design Kit integrates all the hardware and software needed to build a set-top box (STB). This digital pay-TV receiver works with cable television systems or satellite services such as EchoStar, AlphaStar and Canal+. Manufacturers can easily customize the design to provide online gaming, shopping, web browsing and other premium services.

Major set-top players such as Thomson Consumer Electronics and Tatung Co. have already selected various IBM solutions - all based on PowerPC(tm) chips - to power their upcoming STBs. The all-in-one reference design offers a new way for service providers and manufacturers to get products to market quickly.

According to Dataquest, the market for interactive television and the attendant set-top boxes is "undergoing a mass migration from analog to digital technology." The consulting firm, based in San Jose, Calif., predicts semiconductor sales into the digital STB market to rise to $4.4 billion in 2001, up from $575 million in 1995. Dataquest expects more than 30 million digital set-top boxes to be in homes worldwide by 2000.

IBM's emphasis on integrating functions to design a single-chip solution should allow STB makers and service providers to reduce costs substantially. According to Dataquest, since STB makers "are looking to the semiconductor content of their equipment to cut costs, vendors who offer low-cost, highly integrated standard products for digital STBs will be successful in the long run."

Hardware

IBM is currently able to boil down most of the functions of a STB to three chips because of its expertise in designing and building custom logic chips, also known as ASICs. For maximum functionality and flexibility, IBM's reference design includes:

- PowerPC 403GC(tm) RISC processor with integrated peripheral functions; - IBM CD21 MPEG-2 audio/video decoder chip to display video, play audio, control on-screen display (OSD) and provide enhanced OSD functions; - IBM Set-top Box Peripheral Chip for cost-effective, reliable integration of a number of peripheral functions including infrared, external PC, printer, I2C, Smart card and modem; - 4 MB each of system memory (DRAM) and video memory, plus 2 MB of "FLASH" memory; - Transport interface module connector to allow the set-top box to communicate with satellite or cable network interface units; - Audio digital-to-analog converter for audio output, and a digital encoder to convert video and graphics into NTSC, PAL or SECAM analog video output for display on a television; and - A peripheral expansion port to add additional logic and support testing, debug and prototyping.

In addition to the chips used in the reference design kit, IBM offers a range of devices for digital STB applications, including the PowerPC 403GA(tm), PowerPC 403GB(tm) and PowerPC 403GCX(tm) processors, as well as the CD20 MPEG-2 audio/video decoder.

Software

IBM's set-top kit lets customers focus on developing applications rather than on the development and integration of device drivers and tools. The fully-tested solution helps manufacturers concentrate on differentiation and customized services such as web browsing. IBM plans to include in its set-top kit software development environments from industry-leading vendors Microware Systems Corp. and Integrated Systems, Inc. (ISI).

The ISI solution includes:

- pSOSystem real-time operating system (RTOS); - C and C++ compiler suites from subsidiary Diab Data; and - SingleStep debugger from Software Development Systems.

The Microware solution includes: - DAVID (Digital Audio/Video Interactive Decoder) operating system environment components;

- OS-9 RTOS; - Specialized I/O and APIs for digital television; and - FasTrak compiler and debugger.

"IBM's set-top box reference kit is a complete cost-effective solution for customers using our OS-9-based DAVID software package," said Arthur Orduna, director of marketing for the consumer products group at Microware. "IBM has been a valuable partner for our digital television efforts, and we look forward to supporting its future technologies."

"IBM's integrated hardware and software platform has stepped up the competition in the set-top market," said David St. Charles, president and chief executive officer of ISI. "The outstanding functionality of pSOSystem is an excellent complement to IBM's embedded solutions."