TDK Semiconductor Corp., a leader in the design and manufacture of communication semiconductors for worldwide markets, has introduced a low cost, high performance direct conversion receiver (DCR) integrated circuit for digital satellite and VSAT applications.

The new device, designated the 5503 DCR, provides a receiver design with fewer external components than the conventional dual conversion approach. The 5503 DCR features a wideband I/Q demodulator with an RF input range from 950 to 1450 MHz. It also includes an integrated variable gain amplifier, an integrated VCO, frequency synthesizer and base band amplifiers.

According to Tim Jackson, vice president of TDK Semiconductor's multimedia business unit, "The 5503 DCR is the first single chip solution designed as a result of the DCR technology development breakthrough for L-band receiver applications that TDK Semiconductor announced last July. The new technology enables us to design ICs that significantly reduce the number of external components required to implement a complete receiver solution, thereby reducing the manufacturing complexity and cost. The 5503 DCR, manufactured in standard BiCMOS silicon, offers all of the blocks of an L-band down converter including some passive components."

In the U.S.A. only one of the commercial satellite program providers makes its own receivers -- and that is the poorest product of the bunch with all sorts of little problems most of which the user fortunately cannot see because the original material is not on an adjacent screen. One of the main obstacles to getting overall system costs down, and providing for easier installations for the Do-It-Yourselfer, has been to get lower frequencies out of the box attached to the dish. If you get the complete receiver on one IC with lowish power requirements you have effectively done that. Direct conversion has been an oncoming dream for many RF engineers ever since the possible theories were touted a few decades ago. We now have technologies where the dreaded, complex, baseband filter that was needed for the output of those theoretical systems is no longer required. TDK's architecture is one of those.

With Asian manufacturers looking for markets to replace memory business the future DBS receiver market is one of the attractive alternatives; unlike a number of the other potential vendors, TDK is already in the communications business with established product lines. Key to winning in the DBS market will be the ability to offer the lowest cost receivers with the simplest design and installation. While satellite services continue to battle the ever-building digital cable, with only about 20% of viewers receiving satellite, it has negatives to overcome in its inability to provide local program channels: the industry has to make up for that with more programs, more services and extremely low costs. TDK is in a position with this part, and others that are coming from their research, to take a significant chunk of the market away from what we consider the conventional suppliers.