Entropic Communications and Cortina Systems, Inc. announced their joint collaboration to accelerate the development of high performance customer premise equipment (CPE) including broadband routers and headless gateways, which enable advanced data and TV applications. The reference design addresses service providers' growing CPE needs as they offer higher broadband speeds, newer applications and IP-based video to enhance the user experience. The collaboration leverages the power of Entropic's first-to-market, MoCA(R) (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0 solution paired with Cortina's CS7542 scalable digital home multi-service platform. The Cortina CS7542 is the dual ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A9 processor architecture with multiple enterprise-class acceleration engines. The CS7542's acceleration engines significantly reduce CPU load for Wi-Fi 802.11ac/n performance, freeing up the Cortex-A9 processor to provide value-add services and a future-proofed solution for platform upgrades. Together, this CPE platform creates a powerhouse system to bring next generation data and video services into and throughout the home, with best of breed performance and service to the consumer. The Entropic/Cortina broadband router and headless gateway reference design will be available to OEM and service provider customers in January 2013.

Cortina Systems, Inc. and Zenverge, Inc. announced the availability of a joint reference platform for headless media gateway with transcoding capabilities to stream content to devices that are unable to process broadcast video content. Consumers want to have the multi-screen experience where they can view content anywhere, anytime, on any device. The reference platform utilizes Zenverge's ZN200, a quad stream HD transcoder IC, and Cortina's CS7542, a scalable digital home service delivery SoC. Cortina's CS7542 provides content encapsulation and delivery of IP and broadcast video content for whole home multi-screen distribution. Zenverge's ZN200 transcodes content to any profile, bit rate, or resolution with its powerful TransAll transcoding engine. The CS7542/CS7522 is an ultra high performance multi-services delivery platform, designed to address the paradigm shift occurring in the market place due to the emergence of IPTV technology and the convergence of DVB, router gateways, and DVR set-top boxes. The CS7542/CS7522 creates a new model of a single delivery platform that delivers simultaneous line rate bandwidth for secured data, voice, video, and mobile services without service degradation. Its IPSec and enterprise class QoS/routing performance makes it an ideal solution for powerful digital home and SMB networking appliances. The ZN200 family of content networking ICs is designed specifically to reduce operators' capital expenditures by expanding their traditional set-top box business model to reach a wider range of devices, making it the ideal solution for in-home multi-screen support. The ZN200 enables broadcast operators to efficiently transcode live content to iOS and Android-based tablets and smartphones, deliver high-quality H.264 video content to legacy MPEG-2 set-top boxes, and stream compelling video content to game consoles and other IP devices.

Cortina Systems, Inc. announced the CS4342, an octal 10G Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) device, which delivers low latency and standards compliance in the industry's smallest footprint. The CS4342's 17mm x 17mm package is 34% smaller than other competitive devices available in the market, reducing valuable PCB real estate requirements in high density 10GbE SFP+ and 40G QSFP+ line cards. It reduces latency, a critical parameter in data center and financial applications, to less than a nanosecond, virtually eliminating the contribution of the PHY layer to the overall link latency. The CS4342 incorporates the latest standards and technologies for 10G, 40G, and 100G optics and copper cables, including support for diverse standards such as 10Gbase-LRM, 10G Direct Attach Copper, 10GBase-ZR, and DWDM, which allows equipment manufactures to create one line card to support all standards. The CS4342 joins Cortina's portfolio of dual and quad EDC PHYs that are shipping in volume to switch system vendors. The CS4342 PHY functionality supports eight full duplex 10G links or two full duplex 40G links. Both transmit and receive paths include Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) circuits. The device has a wide operating frequency range covering 1GbE, 1G FC, 2G FC, 4G FC, 8G FC, SONET (9.5 - 11.3G), and 10GbE. EDC capability allows the device to operate with linear SFP+ optical modules to support 10Gbase-LRM, Direct Attach Copper, and 10GBase-ZR and DWDM SMF applications. The device is fully compliant to 10G SFP+ and 802.3ba 40G and 100G nPPI and nAUI specifications. The transmit path includes a 10Gbase-KR compliant 3 tap transmit pre-emphasis capability. The transmit pre-emphasis in conjunction with the receive EDC enables the device to support 10Gbase-KR, 8G FC, and telecom backplane applications. The device is fully autonomous and does not require external processors to control the initial convergence or the dynamic adaption of the dispersion compensation. In addition, the device includes extensive debug features and I/Os for device monitoring and control. Availability The Cortina CS4342 device is currently sampling.