ARM Partners everywhere at CCBN

Posted by Jim Wallace,

06 April 2011

Last week several ARM Partners were on hand to showcase their latest connected ARM Cortex-A9 and Mali-400 products at the China Content Broadcasting Network Exhibition (CCBN). This is China's only international exhibition for broadcast, cable and satellite technology and since its first show in 1993, CCBN has become one of the largest exhibitions in Asia.

There were several highlights at the show from triple play platforms to Android based set-top-box (STB) / iTVs to 3D gaming and stereoscopic devices.

Trident demonstrated their Cortex-A9 Apollo/Shiner SoC family, the PNX8400, which included all the major building blocks needed to develop Next Generation Broadcasting (NGB) solutions. During the show, Trident also announced that its STB SOCs are powering one of the first trial deployments of NGB in China.

LG Smart Box using Trident PNX8400 (Compact UI more suited for TV UI)

Both LG and Cycle Century demonstrated their Android based cable STB using the Cortex-A9. This box supports DVB-C, CA, 1080p video streaming, an open browser with an Apps store, 3D gaming and VoIP.

STMicroelectronics were also demoing their advanced 3D technologies, as well as open-software frameworks and connectivity technologies on STBs using the Mali-400 3D graphics engine.

HiSilicon had several partners showcasing their latest 1GHz Cortex-A9 chip.

(Left) Coship Smart Box based on Hi3716 (Android 2.2); (Right) Using remote mouse to play Angry Birds on Coship Smart Box.

Coship demoded their hybrid Cable-Android STB and I was surprised how intuitive its “mouse over remote controller” worked.

Skyworth triple play box with HiSilicon Cortex-A9

Skyworth also demonstrated their triple play box (Broadcast, Broadband and VOIP video conferencing) using the same HiSilicon Cortex-A9 SOC.

HiSilicon Android reference platform

On the Huawei / HiSilicon stand, a full series of Hi37xx solutions powered by the 1GHz Cortex-A9 were on display from home control to basic HD STBs to advanced HD STB with internet TV. As I walked around the stand, there was a lot of interest from Operators and OEMs and they were impressed at what could now be achieved in STBs that were enabled with Cortex-A9 processors.

NDS InfiniteTV with Amlogic Cortex A9+Mali400 Meson board

NDS also showed their Infinite TV Over The Top (OTT) Platform for Connected TV and companion devices. The demo included an Amlogic Cortex–A9 and Mali-400 “Meson” board with a companion Apple iPad.

Panda showcased their ARM Powered Smart TV and it was impressive to see the Flash performance on this platform.

Flash 10.1 on Panda SmartTV

It was great to see in the brief time I had on the show floor we were surrounded by ARM Partners showing their latest connected ARM powered devices. The show was a highly visible demonstration of the growing momentum behind our Cortex and Mali processors across DTVs and STBs, which require scalable performance in an energy efficient footprint..

What is NGB?
NGB is a government-funded initiative to bring high definition, bidirectional and interactive capabilities throughout China via ultra-wide bandwidth network. Services to be offered include interactive TV (video on demand, pay-per view), videophone, personal video recorder (PVR), streaming music and video, and broadcast TV among existing services in today’s telecom and Internet markets.

Jim Wallace, Director Segment Marketing - Home, ARM, Jim has over 25 years of managing consumer marketing and business development, engineering and business units across a number of hi-tech semiconductor companies, including GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Mitel, Philips and Zarlink. Jim joined ARM in 2006 and leads development of the Consumer market segment. ARM is the world leader in semiconductor IP, with its technology powering over a quarter of all smart electronic devices. His special expertise is in the enablement of digital content delivery across multiple platforms. He began his career as an analog design engineer in Eindhoven after earning a BEng from the University of Limerick.

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