Entropic's TV and STB tuner ICs are made at Jazz Semiconductor's RF CMOS fab

Tower group's Jazz Semiconductor has announced, it is mass-producing Entropic's EN4020, the Entropic's new multi-mode hybrid tuner chip. The EN4020 is made using Jazz's 0.18-micron RF IC tuned CMOS process (CA18QD).

"In 2009, we are estimating that the fixed reception silicon tuner market is 170M units, with that number nearly doubling to over 300M units by 2013", said Hiroko Ishii, Analyst at Techno Systems Research, Inc. "Fueling that growth is demand for high performance DTV and cable/terrestrial set-top boxes as well as a significant shift in designs moving from discrete solutions to integrated silicon tuners."

The silicon tuner from Entropic is a single chip solution with less external components around the chip, and is preferred for its space saving design benefits. EN4020 is used in DTV and cable/terrestrial STBs. Entropic is also famous for its RF modeling design kit for developing small sized inductors for silicon tuner IC.

"In addition to the higher levels of performance our processes allow Entropic to achieve, Jazz technology platforms enable them to realize smaller die size by scaling down the analog portion of the chip, without compromising quality" said Chuck Fox, senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing for Tower and Jazz Semiconductor. "Our advanced silicon process technology is a cost-effective, high-performance solution for customers like Entropic to enable quick time-to-market for innovative products such as the EN4020, targeted at the rapidly growing home entertainment market."

"As the worldwide transition from analog to digital grows, Entropic continues to lead the charge by addressing the demanding performance specifications required for today's TV's and STB's," said Vinay Gokhale, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Entropic.
"As a result of our partnership with Jazz, Entropic has brought to market our most advanced silicon tuner to date, offering tuner manufacturers a hybrid, low cost, flexible solution."