Announced at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada, the BCM3380 family of fully integrated cable solutions is the first set of DOCSIS 3.0 silicon solutions that are truly single-chip, requiring only memory to provide complete DOCSIS functionality, according to Broadcom Corp. The chips provide complete compatibility with prior DOCSIS 2.0, 1.1, and 1.0 specifications, and go well beyond the emerging DOCSIS 3.0 specification to provide advanced features such as bonding support for up to eight simultaneous DOCSIS channels.
The devices integrate the world’s first flexible QAM receiver with split wide-band tuners that do not have the channel lineup limitations of single-frequency window solutions. An integrated multi-channel upstream power amplifier eliminates the need for any costly external power amplifiers, and integrated Gigabit Ethernet and USB transceivers reduce the cost of external components.
To meet the demands of advanced applications, the use of eight DOCSIS channels has become an industry expectation, surpassing the four-channel minimum requirement set forth in the DOCSIS 3.0 specification. With eight downstream DOCSIS channels, the BCM3380 family not only delivers twice the speed of other DOCSIS 3.0 solutions, but is also optimized to support advanced services. As such, all BCM3380 solutions include IP video support hardware that allows an operator to deploy low-cost Internet Protocol video to PCs and to set-top boxes (IP-STB) without costly changes to its existing infrastructure.
The BCM3380 family of channel-bonding silicon solutions is now sampling to early access customers and includes solutions for data cable modems, voice cable modems, and gateway modems. Complete reference designs are available that provide both certification and production-ready hardware and software for turnkey solutions.
Broadcom Corp
www.broadcom.com