April 30, 2001 – Geneva, Switzerland – STMicroelectronics has introduced the STV0360, a single-chip COFDM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) demodulator that includes an integrated high performance A/D Converter.

Fully compliant with the European DVB-T specification (ETS 300 744), the STV0360 performs all of the demodulation functions required to extract the MPEG transport stream from the tuner IF output and connects seamlessly to ST’s industry standard STi55xx OMEGA back-end chips, said ST.

According to the company, the STV0360 has been designed to provide the industry’s most cost-effective terrestrial TV front-end solution in a very small TQFP64 package. The integrated A/D converter can handle up to 64 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulated) carriers in a Direct IF Sampling architecture, eliminating the need for a down-converter in the tuner.

ST continued to say the device includes a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) before the ADC to compensate for SAW filter attenuation, so that no external IF amplifiers are required. In addition, integrated adaptive channel correction in both time and frequency provides excellent Doppler performance.

Built using an advanced 0.18-micron CMOS process, the STV0360 supports 2K/8K carrier modes and operates from a 1.8V supply with a very low power consumption, making it ideal for all-digital terrestrial TV and set-top box applications as well as mobile applications, said ST.