ST, Thomson expand R&D pact to include ICs for digital consumer apps

STMicroelectronics and Thomson multimedia have signed a five-year agreement to cooperate in the R&D of SoC for digital consumer applications. Under the agreement, Thomson and ST will expand the scope of their common activities and jointly develop solutions for digital consumer devices, with early focus on ICs for DVD modules, digital TV receivers and digital set-top boxes.

In particular, the two companies will leverage their position in the satellite TV receiver market and jointly develop highly integrated SoCs for cable set-top box markets.

ST and Thomson will cooperate in both the front-end and back-end processing electronics for DVD products. In addition, ST will leverage experience and know-how in the digital decoding of both analog and digital broadcasts while Thomson will define product architecture and features, and contribute know-how in signal processing for image quality improvements.

The two companies agreed to jointly promote the resulting IP and reference designs. Pooling their respective resources, ST and Thomson intend to accelerate market acceptance of next generation of standardized digital solutions.