LONDON &$151; Broadcom is making a major push into the set-top box and broadcast sector at the IBC, which starts this week in Amsterdam, most notably with the announcement that its latest STB system on chip has received Microsoft Mediaroom integration.

The part is one of the few that has received the accreditation, and is Broadcom’s first to have done so.

"It was a long, tough procedure involving meeting stringent reliability tests and including lots of hardware abstraction, but it gives us a major advantage and opportunity in the multiroom connected TV business," Rich Nelson, VP of marketing at Broadcom's Communications group, told EE Times Europe .

The original Mediaroom certification was done by SigmaDesigns.

The BCM7405 meets the specification for the latest specification of Microsoft's Mediaroom, said Nelson. The IPTV SoC supports existing Mediaroom features, such as instant channel change, HD VOD, 'DVR anywhere' and multi-view, but the 7045 also supports interactive TV applications based on the new Mediaroom Presentation Framework that enables the integration of traditional video channels with content and information sourced from the Internet.

Like almost all of Broadcom's latest chips targeting the STB sector, the parts will be made in a 65-nm process.

For cable set-tops, Broadcom has two new SoCs, both integrating dual 866 MHz tuners, a DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS modem and 3-D graphics processing. The BCM7019 and BCM7025 both also include software support for applications that use Multimedia Home Platform (MHP), Open TV, NDS CDI, SeaChange TV Navigator, Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home, Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), RVU Remote User Interface (RUI) and PacketCable VoIP.

One of the major differences between the two cable chips is that the 7025 also includes an integrated Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) 1.1 interface, which enables the ability of subscribers to access, store and share a wide array of digital media content, including HDTV programs, video-on-demand, DVR recordings, Internet content, video, music, photos and VoIP.

"We are finally seeing some traction in the uptake of the MoCA, home networking specification, certainly in the U.S., with Verizon making the first moves, and driven by increasing use of DVRs in the home, and also expect some movements amongst operators in Europe in the near term," said Nelson.

The SoCs also integrate dynamic power management controllers capable of managing and shutting down unused system components in real time. Both chips offer support for Energy Star and are European Code of Conduct-compliant.