ST supports STBs with reduced power consumption

STMicroelectronics supports the moves toward an assessment of STB performance through total energy consumption as used in other sectors of the consumer electronics industry.

Reducing the energy consumption of STBs benefits all parties within the supply chain: OEMs can differentiate their products by receiving energy-efficient markings such as the Energy Star award, while consumers can potentially benefit from reduced electricity bills.

Today, STBs are sold predominantly on features and cost. In the future, ST believes that consumers will take a broader view looking at the total cost of ownership, which includes the initial purchase price, and costs of power-on and disposal of the equipment when it is no longer required. To that end, ST's strategy focuses on reducing waste energy by including flexible power management features that monitor and adjust the energy consumed by components within the STB environment. These components can be outside the STB, in the case of the low-noise block within a satellite dish, for example, large subsystems within the STB such as a hard disk or even individual modules within the silicon devices themselves.

Programmable power management
"We do not expect consumers to sacrifice functionality in return for reduced power consumption and lower cost of ownership," said Philippe Lambinet, executive VP and general manager of the home entertainment and displays group at STMicroelectronics. "Rather, by monitoring the way in which a product is being used and intelligently configuring the underlying hardware, we'll ensure that power consumption is minimized."

ST's latest STB devices, including the high-definition single-chip STi7105, STi7111 and STi7141 decoders, are supplied with a software driver called STPOWER that controls all power aspects of the device. This API, which can be called from any application within the STB software stack, is common to all devices, allowing flexible control at a component-level, for the creation of application-specific active- and passive-standby modes. In this environment, STB will feature very fast resume times from passive standby, thereby encouraging people to use this feature.

In addition to programmable power-management features, ST is also developing silicon technologies and design methodologies that reduce power consumption. ST is now manufacturing in a 55nm process technology, which is also optimized for lower power, saving approximately 10 percent of power when compared to non-power-optimized 55nm technologies. This technology has already been employed in the STi7105, STi7111 and STi7141 decoders for STB applications.