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Jim Barthold
Conexant Systems Inc. has introduced a cable modem reference design with the silicon and software to create a subscriber cable modem that meets all popular worldwide standards.
The reference design, to be sold at $50,000 to cable modem manufacturers, should reduce the time it takes to get new cable modem products to market, said Scott Keller, manager-product line marketing/cable modem ICs.
"It's certainly the most complete platform you'd ever get from one vendor and it's the most expandable," he said. "If you buy this reference platform, it's so complete you'll be surfing the net within 15 or 20 minutes. All you have to do with this thing is add your own plastic and go through the (DOCSIS) certification wave."
The Conexant design, he said is compatible with Digital Video Broadcast (DVB), Euro DOCSIS or DOCSIS.
"It's my duty to be standards-agnostic," he said. "It doesn't matter because the MAC (media access card) is soft. Everything is built in the PHY (physical) layer that needs to be there. You either download a soft DVB MAC, or a soft DOCSIS MAC, or a (DOCSIS) 1.1-compatible MAC."
Conexant also used its experience with direct broadcast satellite (DBS) tuners to develop "the first broadband cable input tuner," a single chip silicon cable modem tuner, Keller said.
Although other companies, most notably Microtune Inc. and Anadigics Inc. have introduced multi-function tuner chips, "if you want to build a cable modem, this is the tuner for you," Keller added. "It's a highly specialized tuner for this application."
The chip pushes Conexant into a space currently dominated by Broadcom Corp., with Intel Corp. knocking on the door.
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