STMicroelectronics unveils DOCSIS 3.1 chipset

STMicroelectronics has unveiled its DOCSIS 3.1 chipset for cable modems, EMTAs, gateways and advanced set-tops at the CableLabs summer conference in Keystone, Colorado.

The STMicroeletronics STiD325 chip, codenamed Barcelona, supports two 196MHz OFDM downstream channels, 32 single-carrier DOCSIS 3.0 QAM downstream channels, two 96MHz OFDM-A upstream channels and eight single-carrier DOCSIS 3.0 QAM upstream channels. DOCSIS 3.1 makes use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to deliver much greater bandwidth than has been possible with previous versions of DOCSIS.

According to STMicroelectronics, Barcelona deliver high performance through multiple 64-bit ARM CPUs to deliver over 10,000 DMIPS, line-rate networking support on all ports and hardware acceleration for routing and switching.

The chipset is backward compatible with DOCSIS 3.0 in its 32 x 8 channel configuration to allow operators to migrate to DOCSIS 3.1 while supporting legacy deployments.

Barcelona also includes pre-integrated RDK-B software, including DOCSIS and Packetcable stacks, according to the company. RDK-B is the broadband gateway version of the software stack designed by Comcast and others to provide a common baseline platform for advanced set-top boxes.

“Prepared to be among the first commercial DOCSIS 3.1 deployments, our innovative platform architecture supports our ambition to make Barcelona a reference in the Cable industry,” said Philippe Notton, Group Vice President and General Manager of STMicroelectronics’ Consumer Product Division. “As a standalone for multi-gigabit cable gateways or combined with our Monaco SoC for an UltraHD media gateway, ST can offer complete solutions for fast design.”