LONDON — STMicroelectronics has started integrating new technology into set-top-box chips that the company says will have significant impact on the devices' power consumption and environmental impact.

The company's latest chips for STB's, including the high-definition single-chip STi7105, STi7111 and STi7141 decoders, now come with a software driver dubbed STPOWER that controls all power aspects of the device.

This application programming interface (API), which can be called from any application within the STB software stack, is common to all devices, allowing flexible control at a component-level, for the creation of application-specific active- and passive-standby modes.

The STB chips will thus feature fast resume times from passive standby.

In addition to programmable power-management features, ST is also developing silicon technologies and design methodologies that reduce power consumption.

The company says it now manufactures STB devices in a 55-nm process technology, which is also optimized for lower power and this alone saves approximately 10 percent of power when compared to non-power-optimized 55nm technologies.

The combination of programmable power-management features and low-power silicon technology is expected to lead to STB platforms to be capable of achieving Energy Star Tier-2 performance.