MoCA chipmaker Entropic Communications and NXP Semiconductors have teamed up to produce a reference design for networked DVRs that uses both NXP’s system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor and Entropic’s MoCA 1.1 chips.
Chip giant Broadcom announced this week that it’s integrating MoCA 1.1 into three of its SoCs: two for satcos (DVB-S2, DVB-S and 8PSK) and one for cablecos’ DOCSIS 2.0 – but not for the faster DOCSIS 3.0.
Entropic and NXP’s joint reference design is for a multi-room DVR that allows consumers to watch from anywhere in the home the content stored on a DVR.
The reference design’s goal is to help makers of STBs and service providers bring home-networked products to market faster, with lower development costs and “ultra-low” power consumption.
They said the joint reference design will feature NXP’s new PNX847x/8x/9x, which they called the world’s first family of fully integrated STB system-on-chip (SoC) platforms incorporating multi-channel broadcast receivers. The design includes Entropic’s third-generation MoCA 1.1 compliant EN251x single-chip network controller.
Lewis Brewster, senior VP and general manager of NXP’s set-top box business, said the companies believe the design will “transform the economics” of developing high-performance, low-power STBs. Such STBs, he said, “are fundamentally changing the way end users consume multimedia.”
MoCA 1.1 allows speeds up to 175 Mbps and 16 nodes (devices) to be connected. It includes “parameterized” quality of service (PQoS) and remote network diagnostics. Those capabilities, MoCA partisans say, supply the bandwidth and processing speeds required to handle multiple streams of high-definition video in addition to other network traffic and personal content sharing, such as gaming, music streaming, photographs and other digital content.
Addressing the matter of over-the-top video services (Internet-delivered video), Vinay Gokhale, Entropic’s senior VP of marketing and business development, said consumer demand for multi-room DVR, content sharing and over-the-top services on their home network will continue to drive the need for more bandwidth throughout the home. Gokhale said the collaboration between Entropic and NXP allows each to capitalize on its core capabilities and leverage their combined experience and international competitiveness.
As for Broadcom’s announcement last week about offering SoCs with MoCA for fiber-optic networks (GPON), Entropic says it’s working with GPON chip providers such as Broadlight, PMCS and Freescale for “best of breed” solutions.
In any event, Entropic says, it’s too early for GPON chips with integrated MoCA. For one thing, it said, the market’s not ready. For another, any integration today would be with the current MoCA 1.1, whose days are numbered with 2.0 on the horizon. Entropic questions the commercial viability of integrating MoCA 1.1 in GPON chips at this time. Instead, Entropic says it’s keeping the focus on existing projects and on developing chips for the upcoming MoCA 2.0 version, which will offer speeds up to 400 Mbps as compared to MoCA 1.1’s top speed of 175 Mbps.
Entropic expects that most service providers are champing at the bit for the faster 2.0, more so than for integrating MoCA into GPON gear.
Industry expectations are that the specs for MoCA 2.0 will be finished by year-end. A small but nimble Entropic, compared to Broadcom, with MoCA in its DNA, would be expected to be the first out with MoCA 2.0 chips.