To reinforce its aggressive strategy in the cable set-top box market, Microtune, Inc. unveiled the MicroTuner MT2100 family of silicon tuners. A new breed of single-chip tuners fabricated in silicon germanium, the MT2100 family offers the highest performance of any single-chip tuner available today. Targeted to the largest set-top box market in the world, the U.S., the MT2100 family meets the severe, discriminating performance requirements of manufacturers developing new-generation, interactive set-top boxes and multifunctional 'residential gateways'.

"Our newest MicroTuner is the Mercedes Benz of silicon tuners," commented Douglas J. Bartek, Chairman and CEO of Microtune. "It evolves our patented silicon tuner technology to unprecedented levels of performance, integration and functionality, and as a silicon germanium device, pushes the envelope for technology innovation in RF-ICs. The new MicroTuner MT2100 family not only expands our market opportunity in the set-top box sector, but rounds out our silicon tuner product portfolio, enabling us to meet customers' target requirements across the entire price/performance spectrum."

The MicroTuner MT2111, the first member of the family, is a dual-conversion tuner that exceeds the radio frequency (RF) blueprint requirements of the CableLabsý OpenCableý specification, the industry standard for interoperable set-top boxes. Supporting both analog and digital modes, it packs this high level of performance in a tiny ý"-square package, while dissipating only 1ý watts of power. Compared to today's set-top box tuner alternatives, the MicroTuner MT2111 integrates more functionality with comparable performance into a miniature chip, while delivering lower costs in a significantly smaller form factor.

"Microtune is leveraging its position in the standards-based cable modem market to move aggressively into the competitive set-top box sector," said Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communications Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland research firm. "The U.S. cable industry's OpenCable standard has the world's toughest tuner performance requirements. The new silicon germanium-based MicroTuner MT2111 chip demonstrates the company's ability to handle these demands through innovative processing and patented technology." To achieve its performance levels, Microtune crafted the MT2100 family in an advanced silicon germanium (SiGe) production process. As a result, the MT2111 offers the highest level of integration of any silicon tuner in the industry, incorporating not only all active RF functions, including the critical low noise amplifier (LNA), but also integrating Microtune's MT1230 intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier on the chip. SiGe-based processes also provide built-in upgradeability, offering the process headroom to accommodate future designs beyond the 860 MHz of today's set-top boxes.

The MicroTuner MT2111 enables manufacturers to develop high-performance, power-efficient and compact set-top box architectures, streamlining design layouts by eliminating the discrete components, cabling and bulk of competitive RF electronics solutions. In new multi-functional set-top box platforms, it supports the severe video requirements of analog and digital television programming, picture-in-picture functionality and personal video recording services, enabling the same tuner to be used for every video application in multiple tuner configurations.

RF Suite of Products Optimized for Set-Top Box
The MicroTuner MT2111 is based on Microtune's breakthrough silicon tuner architecture. The patent portfolio includes 14 granted patents and 20 pending applications, including two new patents that were filed to support the attenuator inventions of the MT2100 family. The device is part of a complete suite of RF silicon companion components, including Microtune's upstream and broadband amplifier ICs, optimized to enable full two-way communications capability in cable access products.

Microtune, Inc., 2201 Tenth Street, Plano, TX 75074. Phone: 972-673-1600, Fax: 972-673-1602

About one year ago, Microtune decided that the time was right to get serious about the set top box (STB) business. They realized that the STB space was getting more sophisticated with increasingly advanced functions like personal video recording, TiVO replay, interactivity, and games. Customers also wanted to communicate around the house via a wireless connection with remote control devices, input devices and streaming video. The company went about the process of designing chips that would meet this need. To enhance their position, Microtune also purchased Transilica, a manufacturer of wireless connectivity products to enable wireless communications, video and audio throughout the home.

For their efforts, Microtune recently introduced MicroTuner MT2111, the first member of its MT2100 family. It is a silicon tuner for STBs. This silicon tuner replaces the tin can tuners that have been around for the last 30 to 50 years.

The tin can tuners are very large but they are also very reliable. So why would a cable modem or STB manufacturer want to change to a silicon-based tuner? Microtune realized that to get companies to switch to silicon tuners they would have to provide a lower cost, more reliability, offer a smaller size and better performance. That's a tall order but a lack of noise and size are significant advantages to their customers. Today's STBs have multiple tuners and the interconnects between the can tuners presents a big problem with noise. With the silicon tuners you can have a single PCB and connect it with etch as opposed to using cable, needed to connect the tuner cans.

However, this design isn't a simple design change from a tin can to silicon. So far, no company has met the U.S. Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) requirements. The US DOCSIS requirements are more stringent than the rest of the world's specifications because it has the must carry rule - meaning all the local cable companies must carry the local stations. That causes the entire spectrum to be filled with a mixture of analog and digital stations so it puts pressure on the performance of the equipment. No company has been able to meet all the requirements, but they are getting closer.

The MT2111 is a dual-conversion tuner that exceeds the RF blueprint requirements of the CableLabs OpenCable specification, which is the industry standard for interoperable STBs. The MT2111 receives frequencies in the 48 MHz to 860 MHz range and converts a selected channel to an intermediate frequency (IF). Its analog and digital conversion architecture has no requirement for tracking filters, and provides the desirable characteristics of traditional cable television tuners, including controlled input impedance across the input band, low in-band emissions, and good selectivity.

The SiGe that Microtune gets from IBM allows them to really pack a lot of transistors on each chip, and at the same time keep the power down to 1.5 W. The MT2111 is an integrated single-chip tuner that packs a lot of circuitry on one chip and includes a low-noise amplifier, some mixers and frequency synthesizers, oscillator varactors, and a serial interface.

Microtune also offers the MT2040, which is targeted at the DOCSIS cable modem market and some of the rest of the world markets. The MT2111 is geared toward open cable set top boxes and these two products will be the cornerstone of Microtune's product line.

The MT2111 tuner will be sampling in Q1, 2002 and is priced at $9.00 in quantities of 10,000. For more information about the MT2111 tuners and Microtune's complete suite of RF solutions, visit Microtune's Website at www.microtune.com.