Live Satellite Test Confirms Advantages of 8PSK Turbo Code Technology from STMicroelectronics

Eutelsat, TPS and ST demonstrate enhanced satellite transmission technology

STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), the world's leading supplier of set-top box (STB) chips, has announced that it successfully operated a live 8PSK turbo-coded satellite digital TV broadcast during a satellite test in "France Telecom Reseaux et Services Internationaux" premises in Rambouillet, France. The demonstration, which took place on December 5, 2002, was based on ST's STV0499 8PSK Turbo Coding technology, which increases throughput for advanced satellite broadcast services up to 50% over today's commercial satellite links.

The demonstration, which featured an actual satellite connection, highlights STMicroelectronics' collaboration with French satellite pay-TV operator TPS and Eutelsat, which provided the satellite link (EUROBIRD 2/ 33°E on a 16.8 MHz bandwidth, using 1/2 transponder). Although developed for data rates up to 45Mbaud, the STV0499 used in the demonstration system ran downstream at 12.2Mbauds (useful bit rate of 25.2 Mbps) input. The system that has been demonstrated provides satellite broadcasters with an efficient method of increasing throughput over existing satellite infrastructures and providing new services for their customers.

Addressing all digital satellite TV markets, the STV0499 allows broadcasters to obtain increased bandwidth through their existing transponders, thereby allowing them to offer additional services (such as additional standard TV channels, HDTV or Internet download) or to reduce the dish size by more than 33% with their existing satellite slots.

TPS is a French satellite Pay TV operator strongly involved from its launch in new technologies like downloading software in set-top boxes, deploying statistical encoding and launching the first Hard Disk decoder in France. STMicroelectronics provides TPS with chips for its subscribers' set-top boxes. TPS considers this presentation of an 8PSK modulation in a complete DVB transmission as a major step in digital satellite technology.

Manufactured in 0.18-micron CMOS technology, the STV0499 includes QPSK, 8PSK and 16QAM mapping and an integrated Turbo coder/decoder. The 8PSK/16QAM Turbo coding system increases the bandwidth of advanced satellite transmission by more than 35% compared to standard commercial transmission with existing satellite installations. It also supports an increase in bandwidth of up to 50% if 8PSK transmission is used.

Fully compliant with DVB-S and DIRECTV specifications, the STV0499 is also able to encode and decode 8PSK and 16QAM with backward compatibility to existing QPSK set-top boxes, smoothing the transition to higher broadcasting performances. In addition, it offers seamless connection to ST's industry standard STi55xx (OMEGA) set-top box decoders, while reducing the system cost. In addition, the STV0499 supports the latest DiSEqC 2.x technology, allowing bi-directional data transmission between the set-top box in the house and the dish equipment outside.