Comcast's complex legal battle with one of the technology vendors behind its current “10G” network upgrade has heated up, with Carlsbad, California-based chipmaker MaxLinear countersuing the cable operator earlier this month.

MaxLinear claims in a Dec. 1 New York federal court filing that Comcast stole trade secrets associated with Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 technology. The suit is accessible here. 

Lightreading, which has reported on this dispute since Comcast filed an initial complaint back in May, was also the first to report on the countersuit. 

MaxLinear said in its suit that it “developed and shared” new technologies related to FDX DOCSIS 4.0 gateways “with the hope that Comcast would purchase and deploy them in service of the more than 14 million Comcast households that already use MaxLinear chips (and beyond). But Comcast had a different plan. While Comcast simultaneously lauded MaxLinear’s new technology as part of its future plans, Comcast scaled back its existing purchase orders of MaxLinear products and ultimately ceased the purchase of any new MaxLinear products altogether.”

The cable operator provided this response to Next TV: “Comcast treats confidentiality and contractual obligations with the utmost respect, and contrary to MaxLinear’s claim, Comcast engineers independently created our FDX-amplifier technology in conjunction with another trusted vendor. MaxLinear’s allegations are completely without merit, and we look forward to demonstrating that in court.”

Untangling the key through lines of this complex legal battle is challenging, but there seems to be a lot more to this case than a client taking a vendor's tech and then eighty-sixing the relationship.

The dispute seems to have started way back in 2015 when MaxLinear paid $287 million to acquire Entropic, a company in nearby San Diego that holds numerous patents related to MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance). 

Evolving into a patent troll monikered Entropic Communications, the unit back in February sued Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, Dish Network and DirecTV, claiming they were violating 20 of its MoCA patents. (Notably, Charter entered into a settlement agreement with Entropic earlier this week.)

As there were reportedly written up, MaxLinear’s “vendor service agreement” (VSA) and “statement of work” (SOW) with Comcast held provisions that prohibited lawsuits from being filed against the client. So, to clear the legal path for its Entropic unit to sue the cable operator, Comcast claims MaxLinear abruptly and improperly ended its VSA and SOW.

“MaxLinear has attempted to terminate the VSA and SOW in breach of both Agreements as part of a transparent attempt to further its financial interests in patent litigation,” Comcast said in its May lawsuit filing in the Southern District of New York. “Rather than deal with the realities of the VSA’s express terms, MaxLinear apparently thinks it can render the covenant irrelevant by terminating — improperly — the VSA and SOW. It cannot do so, and its attempted termination is a clear violation of both Agreements.” 

MaxLinear has emerged as the successful buyer of Intel Corp.’s Home Gateway Platform Division, paying $150 million in cash for the unit that makes chips for home gateway products.

The addition of the Intel unit delivers Carlsbad, Calif.-based MaxLinear a new Wi-Fi processor product line, along with other broadband products, to complement its radio frequency and mixed-signal processors used in high-speed cable, fiber optic and ethernet Internet networks.

The move positions MaxLinear to compete head-one with Broadcom as a vendor of processors used in DOCSIS-enabled home routers and gateways, as well as Wi-Fi access points and ethernet broadband gear.

“These assets add significant scale to our entire business while enabling us to provide a compelling Wi-Fi product offering with tremendous growth opportunities inside and outside of the connected home, including expanding the portfolio to include Internet of Things solutions,” said Kishore Seendripu, chairman and chief executive of MaxLinear, in a statement.

MaxLinear expects to add $60 million to $70 million in quarterly revenue from the deal. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

Intel had been shopping its Home Gateway Platform Division for several months, with the Silicon Valley giant divesting underperforming divisions as of late. In 2019, for example, the Santa Clara-based company sold its smartphone cellular modem division to Apple for $1 billion.

Chipmaker MaxLinear will start a search for a new CFO after its current one, Adam Spice, takes a similar role at Rocket Lab, a privately held space orbital launch vehicle provider based in California.

RELATED: Broadband Space Race Heats Up

Spice, who joined MaxLinear in 2011, is set to leave the company on May 23, 2018. MaxLinear said it has launched a nationwide search to find Spice’s successor.

RELATED: MaxLinear Puts Up $21M for Marvell’s G.hn Business

MaxLinear, whose product portfolio includes DOCSIS silicon and MoCA and G.hn chipsets, reaffirmed financial guidance for Q1 2018, which includes revenues in the range of $110 million to $114 million.

The HomeGrid Forum said Dr. Leonard “Len” Dauphinee has been appointed president of the group, which is focused no G.hn, a speedy home networking technology for that can run on coax, copper pairs, powerline, and plastic optical fiber.

Dauphinee, the VP and CTO of MaxLinear’s Broadband Group, succeeds Donna Yasay, who stepped down as the Forum’s president last month.

Dauphinee’s appointment comes about six months after MaxLinear acquired Marvell’s G.hn business for $21 million, a move that complemented the chipmaker’s linkages to products that use Multimedia over Coax Alliance technology. Dauphinee is also a member of the MoCA board. 

RELATED: MaxLinear Puts Up $21M for Marvell’s G.hn Business

G.hn is based on standards developed by the International Telecommunications Union, and includes promoter members such as AT&T, BT, KT Telecom and Chunghwa Teleco. Arris is using G.hn for a new line of “RipCurrent” routers and extenderssold at retail that use powerline technology in tandem with WiFi.

“G.hn has gained momentum within the service provider and retail markets over the last few years. It has proven its capabilities as the in-home networking technology of choice, but we still have work to do,”  Dauphinee said in a statement. “A few years ago, we were talking about G.hn being the 4K TV enabler; now the industry has moved forward to explore the potential of 8K, and HomeGrid Forum is meeting this new challenge.”

Prior to joining MaxLinear, Dauphinee worked at Broadcom, leading broadband RF IC design for MoCA, satellite TV, cable modem, cable set-top, terrestrial TV, and microwave backhaul products.

MaxLinear Inc. last week put up $21 million in cash for Marvell’s G.hn business, a deal that gives the chipmaker a foray into home networking technology that, it says, will complement its Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) business.

MaxLinear, which got into the MoCA market in the spring of 2015 via its acquisition of Entropic Communications, says it expects to close the deal for Marvell’s G.hn business sometime in Q2 2017.

RELATED: MaxLinear Wraps Up Entropic Deal

G.hn, based on standards developed by the International Telecommunications Union, runs on a variety of home wiring, including coax, phone lines, powerlines and plastic optical fiber. HomeGrid Forum, which is tied to G.hn, includes promoter members such as AT&T, BT, KT Telecom and Chunghwa Teleco. Of recent note, Arris is using G.hn for a new line of “RipCurrent” routers and extenders sold at retail that use powerline technology in tandem with WiFi.

“G.hn is truly complementary to MoCA,” MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu said on the company’s Q4 call last Wednesday (Feb. 8). While MoCA is adept at high-speeds networking on home coax lines, he said G.hn is “ideally suited” for electrical twisted pair and powerline networks.

The pending acquisition,  he added, will also enable MaxLinear to secure “several strategic tier 1 telco operator engagements and design wins,” including those with South Korea’s KT Telecom, China Telecom, and Reliance in India, among others.  

MaxLinear CTO Adam Spice said the G.hn business being acquired has “nascent revenues” in the “low single-digital millions of dollars’ in the Q1/Q2 2017 timeframe,” but gives MaxLinear “a strong pipeline of design wins and platforms that are already ramping.”

As for the complementary nature of the technologies, Seendripu said telecom operators that “subscribe to the ITU standards do not use MoCA for the distribution inside the home.”

He added that “MoCA is far superior to G.hn,” but said G.hn “wave two technology” from Marvell enables on twisted pair “gigabit- plus data rates that otherwise was not possible in the past.”

That, he said, will allow MaxLinear to sell the G.hn product to telcos that are deploying xDSL, G.fast or fiber largely outside North America.

On the MoCA front, Seendripu said the company’s next-gen MoCA 2.5 platform, which can reach up to 3  Gbps, is on track to ramp in the second half of 2017. MaxLinear’s MoCA technology is also “morphed” in to its c.LINK platform, which provides low-cost access infrastructure for MDUs and is already being deployed by several cable MSOs in China.

Regarding  DOCSIS 3.1, he expects that part of MaxLinear’s business to become a “very meaningful growth driver in second half of 2017.” D3.1 product growth rose by more than two times in Q4, but remains “a small part of our cable data mix,” Seendripu said.

Also in the second half of this year, MaxLinear expects to start sampling silicon for Full Duplex DOCSIS, an extension of DOCSIS 3.1 that supports symmetrical speeds up to 10 Gbps.

RELATED: ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS Speeds Ahead

MaxLinear posted Q4 revenues of $87.1 million, down 12% from the year-ago quarter, and net income of $8.3 million (12 cents per share). For Q1 2017, the company expects revenues of $86 million to $90 million.

Offering another indicator that the deployment ramp of DOCSIS 3.1 is in its early stages, MaxLinear said it has shipped more than 100,000 front-end systems-on-chips (SoCs) and programmable gain amplifier chipsets for the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks.

MaxLinear has teamed with Intel Corp. on DOCSIS 3.1 modems and gateways. Together, they are competing in that market with Broadcom. Among CPE vendors, Hitron Technologies Americas demonstrated a DOCSIS 3.1 gateway powered by Intel and MaxLinear silicon at the recent SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

“Within our operator family, the cable DOCSIS data gateway market is an exciting strategic growth platform for us particularly as we start to see initial data service deployments around the new multi gigabit cable DOCSIS 3.1 standards,” Kishore Seendripu, MaxLinear’s CEO, said Monday on the company’s Q3 call.

He said the “bigger part of the ramp” is expected to occur in the second of 2017.  “We have not yet seen what I call a stronger part of the ramp for DOCSIS 3.1 yet, and the current expectation is still it's going to be a second half phenomenon.”

Several cable operators, including Comcast, WideOpenWest, Midco, RCN, among others, have been rolling out or trialing 1-Gig residential services using DOCSIS 3.1.

RELATED: Comcast Sets DOCSIS 3.1 Expansion, Launches 1-Gig in Detroit

Though MaxLinear continues to wind-down the video SoC business it has as part of its 2015 acquisition of Entropic, Seendripu noted that silicon for Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) remains an “increasingly strategic part of our business.” MoCA is a speedy, video-focused home networking technology for in-home coax networks, used primarily for whole-home DVRs and WiFi adapters and bridges.

Of recent note, MaxLinear demonstrated a new multi-gigabit MoCA 2.5 platform at a CableLabs-run conference. MoCA introduced the 2.5 spec in April.

While the MoCA 2.5 chips are sampling now, Seendripu expects revenues for the company’s MoCA 2.1 chip to start in mid-2017.

MoCA 2.1 is a firmware feature and extension of MoCA 2.0 that supports throughputs of 500 Mbps and a 1 Gbps “bonded” outputs along other components aimed to set a migration path toward MoCA 2.5.

MaxLinear posted Q3 revenues of $96.3 million, up 1% year-on-year, and net income of $9.7 million (14 cents per share), down from year-ago net income of $22.6 million (33 cents per share).  The company expects Q4 revenues of between $85 million and $89 million. 

MaxLinear has unveiled the first chipset to support MoCA 2.5, a new home networking spec for in-home coax networks that supports speeds up to 2.5 Gbps and play nicely alongside cable’s emerging multi-gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 platform.

MaxLinear timed the introduction of its MoCA 2.5 silicon, the MxL3710, with this week’s CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, Colo.

It said the MxL3710 is pin-compatible to the chipmaker’s new MoCA 2.0 bonded IC, the MxL3705, which delivers up to 1.2 Gbps of MAC throughput. Pin compatibility allows OEMs to upgrade their existing MxL3705 designs for 2.5 Gbps applications, the company said.

MaxLinear noted that the MxL3710 features an “enhanced mode” that will deliver up to 3.0 Gbps of throughput when communicating with other MxL3710 nodes in the same network.

MoCA 2.5, which will ultimately be integrated in home gateways and other CPE, will interoperate with MoCA 1.1 and 2.0, which supports data rates of up to 1 Gbps. MoCA tech is used today mostly for whole-home DVRs and in bridge devices that help to beef up home networks. 

The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) introduced the 2.5 spec in April, anticipating then that a certification test plan would be available in a year or less. MoCA is also said to be working on MoCA 3.0, a next-gen platform that will aim to deliver capacities of up to 10 Gbps within the next three to five years.

“Given the recent ratification of the MoCA 2.5 standard, the Multimedia over Coax Alliance is delighted to see MaxLinear set the pace with its MoCA 2.5 offering, Charlie Cerino, president of MoCA, said in a statement.

MaxLinear, which got into the MoCA game via its 2015 acquisition of Entropic, competes in that sector with Broadcom.

“With regard to MoCA 2.5, I don't think there's going to any player who is going to have MoCA 2.5 anytime soon,” MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu said Monday on the company’s earnings call.

MaxLinear, he added, is also making progress with DOCSIS 3.1 in partnership with Intel.

“We expect initial product rollouts [of D3.1 product] in the fourth quarter of 2016 and into the first half of 2017,” he said, but didn’t expect early shipments of D3.1 products to impact the company’s current guidance.

MaxLinear posted Q2 revenues of $101.7 million, up 44% year-on-year, and net income of $22.6 million, or 33 cents per diluted share. It expects Q3 revenue of between $94 million and $98 million. 

Tech news is starting to roll in as AngaCom gets underway this week in Cologne, Germany. Here’s a snapshot:

-Cisco Systems said Altice has begun a field trial of DOCSIS 3.1 with SFR in France using the cBR-8, the vendor’s flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP). Cisco said Altice used the platform in a field trial that hit speeds of more than 3 Mbps per sub. Elsewhere on the D3.1 front, VOO, a Belgian cable operator, is rolling out the cBR-8 for residential and business services.

-Separately, Cisco announced that Teracom A/S, a provider of digital terrestrial transmitted radio and TV in Denmark, has launched a new digital headend that utilizes Cisco’s D9902 Digital Content Manager.

-Huawei has launched a 10-gig HFC access platform that supports DOCSIS 3.1 as well as 10G PON. Its HFC access platform consists of a OLT (Optical Line Terminal), 10G PON interface board, DOCSIS 3.1- based distributed CCAP, 10G PON ONT (Optical Network Terminal), and is tied together with a unified network management system, the company said. Huawei said its D-CCAP has been deployed with MSOs in 29 counties, including Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, France, Japan, Russia, and Brazil, with a footprint that covers 40 million households.

-Arris said German MSO NetCologne has tapped its Touchstone TG2492 Gateway to deliver gigabit speeds and wireless broadband coverage to subs in the Cologne, area. The TG2492 is a EuroDOCSIS gateway supports speeds of up to 1Gbps (32x8 DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding), dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, and an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (for voice, up to two lines).

-Casa Systems said DNA Ltd., Finland’s largest MSO, has deployed the vendor’s C100G converged cable access platform for broadband service. DNA, Casa noted, recently tapped the platform to show D3.1-based downstream speeds of 3.055 Gbps. Casa Systems said the C100G has been deployed by more than 135 service providers, including Liberty Global, Jupiter Communications (J:COM) of Japan, Mediacom Communications and Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications).

-Emcore has introduced the Medallion 8100 Series DOCSIS 3.1  L-EMLTM 1550nm externally-modulated CATV transmitter. The L-EMLTM device consists of a high power, low-noise, narrow linewidth laser combined with a proprietary highly linearised modulator in a monolithic assembly, the company said.

-MaxLinear said its MxL370x chipset has been picked by Hirschmann Multimedia BV for a new line of bonded MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0-based home networking products that will carry the “MOKA” brand. The new line will include a MOKA plug-in module for its in-home amps, a MOKA WiFi extender, and a USB-powered MOKA mini.

-VeEX will use this week’s show to debut a network sweep system for DOCSIS 3.1 deployments. Its redesigned CaLan 3010H+ CaTV sweep system is a headend unit that is compatible with Sunrise Telecom’s CM2800 and CM3800 testers, which now form part of the VeEX CaTV product portfolio, the vendor said.

-Rohde & Schwarz said it’s expanding its DOCSIS test and measurement portfolio with a D3.1- signal generator.

Get more #INTX2016 news.

DOCSIS modem and gateway maker Hitron and chipmaker MaxLinear have teamed on the launch of the CMS-02, an embedded spectrum analysis module that enables MSOs to monitor their networks while keeping network downtime in check. 

The jointly-developed module, which works with DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1, also simplifies network monitoring and analysis for cable operators deploying triple-play services by allowing the network to be continuously monitored at strategic locations, they said.

This ability to divide the network into smaller segments, they claimed, can reduce network disruptions while also helping MSOs to troubleshoot noise and interference issues.

The CMS-02 is designed to provide full spectrum upstream and downstream network monitoring beyond the DOCSIS spectrum, including video and MPEG layers, the companies said, noting that it can also be managed remotely.

Hitron said it will be conducting a field trial of 100 units on five different use-cases, including DOCSIS 3.1 nodes, fiber deep nodes, mid-split upgraded nodes, legacy hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) node augmentation, and headend monitoring and reporting.

“Locating upstream and return noise in the network has been a long-standing problem for cable operators and drives significant operational overhead,” Len Dauphinee, VP and CTO of MaxLinear’s Broadband Group, said in a statement. “MaxLinear’s Full-Spectrum Capture technology enables the Spectrum Analysis features of CMS-02. The CMS-02 increases the efficiencies from both the network operation and management standpoints, allowing cable operators to maximize the level of network performance and support that they can provide to their customers.”

“Our close collaboration with the MaxLinear engineering team on this product has resulted in a solution that is focused on addressing the network analysis pain points of cable operators,” added Greg Fisher, CTO for Hitron Technologies Americas. 

Chipmaker MaxLinear saw cable data gateway revenues climb more than 10% in Q1 on a sequential basis, thanks in part to a “surge” in 8-channel DOCSIS 3.0 modems tagged for Latin America and a pick-up of 24-channel D3.0 equipment, company CEO Kishore Seendripu said on Monday’s earnings call.

“The DOCSIS data gateway market continues to be an exciting and strategic growth platform for us, which enables us to address the expanding over-the-top video and data markets,” he said. “Our customer design wins and operator engagements around the new multi-gigabit cable DOCSIS 3.1 standard-based data services are gathering strong momentum ahead of the initial product roll-outs expected in the second-half.”

As for silicon for D3.1 modems and gateways, MaxLinear expects to be shipping in volume quantities by Q3 or Q4 of this year, with a more rapid acceleration in 2017, according to company CFO Adam Spice.

Among MSOs, Comcast has been the most aggressive with DOCSIS 3.1 early on. It has an “advanced consumer trial” of a DOCSIS 3.1-based 1-Gig (downstream) offering underway in Atlanta, and has identified Nashville, Chicago, Detroit and Miami as markets that will join the D3.1 mix in later this year. 

MaxLinear is also looking to support multi-gigabit speeds on the home network by supporting MoCA 2.5, a next-gen Multimedia over Coax Alliance platform that will support up to 2.5 Gbps.

MaxLinear is also continues to bank on wireless, announcing yesterday that it is buying certain assets and IP tied to Broadcom’s wireless infrastructure backhaul business for $80 million in cash. That complements MaxLinear’s recent $21 million acquisition of Microsemi’s Broadband Wireless Division.

Seendripu said the Broadcom deal will add microwave and millimeter-wave backhaul modem capabilities, which will be combined with its microwave RF transceiver technologies.

For the quarter, MaxLinear posted net revenue of $102.7 million, up 4% from the previous quarter, and up 190% from the year-ago period. Q1 net income was $19.1 million, or 29 cents per share, versus a net loss of $4.7 million, or 12 cents per share, in Q1 2015.

Though cable data revenue was flat in Q4, chipmaker MaxLinear expects the picture to improve later this year as several major MSOs begin to accelerate the purchase and deployment of gateways outfitted with DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks.

“We expect major cable operators to ramp shipments of DOCSIS 3.1 data gateways in the second half of 2016,” MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu said Monday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.

MaxLinear, which demoed a D3.1 platform with Intel at last month’s CES, believes “this upgrade cycle will generate solid revenue growth over the next several years.”

MaxLinear and Intel will be fighting for share as operators start to march on DOCSIS 3.1. According to sources, the first batch of DOCSIS 3.1 modems recently certified by CableLabs were powered by silicon from rival Broadcom.

“I think our cable data business is pretty healthy,” Seendripu said, noting that the company is still seeing growth with DOCSIS 3.0 modems that can bond 24 or 32 downstream channels amid the anticipated run-up to D3.1. “We did not see the growth we had expected…in the past quarter, but we have good strong backlog in Q1, so we feel pretty good.”

As for D3.1, “there is a very good chance, in the second half, of DOCSIS 3.1 to ramp,” he added, noting that MaxLinear is “very well positioned” in that area with a major, but yet unnamed, MSO in North America.

Among U.S.-based operators, Comcast is already being aggressive, having named five markets where it plans to initially rollout D3.1 during 2016.

On the financial front, MaxLinear posted a Q4 net loss of $8.5 million (14 cents per share), on revenues of $98.9 million, up 4% from the year-ago quarter. The loss included $21.6 million in intangible asset impairment charges and $2.3 million in restructuring charges.

Operator revenues grew 10% in Q4, versus the Q3 2015, and accounted for 76% of total revenue in the period, MaxLinear said.

Full year 2015 revenues increased 126%, thanks in part to its acquisition of Entropic, a maker of Multimedia over Coax Alliance technology, last April.

Seendripu said MaxLinear had “particularly strong” MoCA shipments into both satellite and cable platforms in Q4. Last month, it introduced a third-generation MoCA 2.0 system (the MxL3705) that supports 1.2 Gbps of aggregate MAC throughput for up to 16 “nodes” on the home network. MaxLinear is expected to be in the mix when MoCA moves ahead on next-gen 3.0 platform that will target in-home data networking capacities of 2.5 Gbps. 

Seendripu also offered an update on MaxLinear’s legacy SoC products, noting that the company is seeing “softness” in demand for HD Digital Terminal Adapters, which are simple one-way digital-to-analog boxes that MSOs are using for their digital transitions. However, he said current backlog levels point to sequential revenue growth in that area in Q1 2016.

Primary revenues from HD DTAs are coming way of Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.

Offering another glimpse at the expected speed of cable’s rollout of DOCSIS 3.1, chipmaker MaxLinear expects product volumes to climb toward the second half of next year.

Speaking Tuesday on the company’s third quarter earnings call, CEO Kishore Seendripu said MaxLinear made progress on its DOCSIS 3.1 initiatives during the quarter, and “we currently expect to ramp in volume in the second half of 2016.”

In September at the IBC show in Amsterdam, MaxLinear and partner Intel announced a chipset designed to be compatible with DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks. That platform features combines an upgraded form of Intel’s Puma silicon with MaxLinear’s MxL268 Full-Spectrum Capture tuner, which can obtain channels for bonding from anywhere along the cable spectrum. The first wave of DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be hybrids that can support both DOCSIS 3 .1 and DOCSIS 3.0-based traffic.

Hitron Technologies said last month that its first D3.1-based modem product will be powered by the Intel/MaxLinear combo.

MaxLinear and Intel will be competing on the D3.1 chip front against Broadcom and STMicroelectronics.

Seendripu noted on the call that Comcast is one of the MSOs “leading the charge” on DOCSIS  3.1, while other MSOs look to offer gigabit capabilities using DOCSIS 3.0-based platforms that can bond up to 32 downstream channels.

“So we got multiple ways to get to multi-big gigabit services,” he said.

MaxLinear posted Q3 revenues of $95.2 million, up 34% sequentially and 193% year-over-year, reflecting the first financial period that reflected a full-quarter of contribution from the company’s acquisition of Entropic Communications, a maker of silicon for set-tops and Multimedia over Coax technology. MaxLinear also posted Q3 net income of $1.6 million (3 cents per diluted share), versus a net loss of $3.2 million (9 cents per share) in the year-ago quarter. 

Those results beat Wall Street analyst expectations. MaxLinear shares rocketed $2.65 (20.18%) to $15.78 each in early day trading Wednesday.

Hitron Technologies has taken the wraps off a new DOCSIS 3.0-powered modem that can deliver downstream speed bursts in excess of 1 Gbps.

Hitron’s “Gigabit Cable Modem,” a model also known as the CDA3-35, can bond up to 32 downstream channels and up to eight upstream channels, representing an advance over 24x8 DOCSIS 3.0 modems. The new model can handle up to 1.2 Gbps in North American systems that use 6MHz-wide channels, and up to 1.6 Gbps on EuroDOCSIS systems that utilize 8MHz-wide channels.

The CDA3-35 is equipped with Intel’s Puma 6-MG DOCSIS processor and MaxLinear’s 32-channel MxL268 tuner, which, Hitron noted, are “drop-in and software compatible upgrades to prior 16- and 24-channel solutions.” Broadcom has also announced a 32x8 DOCSIS 3.0 solution.

All of those options are appearing ahead of DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks. The first D3.1 modems will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1-based  traffic.

Hitron, which ships more than 3 million DOCSIS units worldwide per year, also announced that GCI of Alaska and Suddenlink Communications are the first MSOs to deploy the CDA3-35 for residential and business customers.

Last month, Suddenlink launched a 1 Gbps (downstream) residential broadband service to an initial set of markets -- Bryan-College Station, Texas; Nixa, Mo.; and Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C. That service, which uses DOCSIS 3.0, is paired with a 50 Mbps upstream, and sells for about $109 per month as a stand-alone service, and for less when bundled with other Suddenlink services.

Hitron claimed that the CDA3-35 is the industry’s first 32x8 D3 modem product to deploy commercially in North America.

“The rollout of gigabit cable modems into the home will enable the adoption of advanced applications such as high-definition streaming content, interactive services, home security and other next-generation connected home technologies that rely on fast, reliable broadband connectivity to the Internet,” explained Jeff Heynen, Research Director, Broadband Access and Pay TV at IHS.

“For cable operators, the availability of gigabit technology over their existing cable plant will enable them to quickly compete with fiber-based services at an affordable price point,” Jeff Heynen, research director, broadband access and pay TV at IHS, said in a statement.

“The CDA3-35 provides the fast Internet connectivity speeds that will allow MSOs to deploy next-generation interactive services to their subscribers and support the increasingly advanced applications and devices in the Connected Home,” added Todd Babic, chief sales and marketing officer for Hitron Technologies Americas. 

MaxLinear has joined the board of directors of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), moving up from an Associate level membership that the company has held since 2011.

MaxLinear was eligible to assume the seat on the MoCA board as a result of its acquisition of Entropic Communications late last month. Entropic was a pioneer in MoCA-powered silicon and products.

“MaxLinear’s enthusiasm and commitment will greatly contribute to the success of the Alliance. We are delighted to have them join the Board and look forward to their insights and involvement” said Charles Cerino, president of MoCA, in a statement.

“We intend to take a very active role in MoCA,” added Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear. “We have long supported the value MoCA technology brings to the connected home.”

MoCA technology is being used in a variety of whole-home DVRs, set-tops, broadband gateways, and Ethernet-to-coax bridge devices. As an upgrade of MoCA 1.1, the 2.0 version is designed to support usable throughputs of more than 400 Mbps in “Basic” mode and 500 Mbps in a “Turbo” point-to-point setting when connected devices are operating in the baseline mode and utilizing a single channel. MoCA 2.0 also supports an “Enhanced” mode that uses channel bonding to produce throughputs of between 800 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

Last month, MoCA said all new product certifications during the first quarter of 2015 were for devices of the 2.0 variety.

MaxLinear said it has completed its acquisition of Entropic Communications, a company that specializes in set-top chipsets and Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) silicon.

The deal, whose original implied value was $287 million when it was announced in February, has existing holders of MaxLinear capital stock with approximately 65% and former Entropic stockholders will hold approximately 35% of MaxLinear's outstanding capital stock.

In addition to broadening MaxLinear's presence in its existing markets, MaxLinear said the acquisition will also add scale and deepen customer relationships in areas such as the satellite pay TV market.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to bring together two talented and largely complementary teams, as we increase our capabilities to solve the most difficult analog and mixed-signal RF challenges in Broadband markets," said Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear, in a statement.

MaxLinear also announced first quarter results Thursday, posting revenues of $35.4 million, up 9% year-over-year, citing demand across its cable and satellite platform solutions, more than offsetting expected seasonal softness in its terrestrial set-top box business. That was paired with a net loss of $4.7 million (12 cents per share), a number that included $2.5 million in fees and expenses tied to the Entropic acquisition, and $600,000 in severance costs related to eliminating engineering ops in Shanghai.

“We are particularly encouraged that the demand for our DOCSIS 3.0 data modem and gateway front end solutions, one of our primary cable growth drivers, experienced a strong shift towards higher-channel-count DOCSIS 3.0 modems and gateways,” the company noted. 

Demand for DOCSIS 3.0 modems that can bond 16 or 24 downstream channels picked up in the fourth quarter of 2014, MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu said Monday during the chipmaker's earnings call.

The resumption of demand for those beefier D3 modems followed a drop-off earlier part of the year, which caused a dip in cable revenues for MaxLinear, a maker of silicon tuners and demodulators for modems, set-tops and other cable and satellite TV gear.  On the cable modem front, MaxLinear has been pairing its tuner products with Intel’s Puma 6 DOCSIS 3.0 silicon.  Intel and MaxLinear have also begun to set their sights on a 32-channel D3 platform and the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform, which will support multi-gigabit speeds.  MaxLinear is also looking to expand into other markets, including MoCA silicon, via its proposed acquisition of Entropic Communications.

Seendripu said most “major operators,” including Comcast and Liberty Global, have decided to switch over to D3 modems that can bond 16 or 24 channels – enough to support downstream burst rates of 640 Mbps  and 960 Mbps, respectively in North American DOCSIS systems that use 6MHz-wide channels.

D3 modems that can bond up to eight downstream channels is “in the rearview,” the exec said, noting that less than half of MaxLinear’s shipments now support those channel-bonding counts in cable data gateways.

As a result of the increased demand for higher-end D3 products, MaxLinear’s cable revenue mix rose to 63% in the fourth quarter, versus 59% in the previous period.

MaxLinear posted fourth quarter net loss of $2.4 million (6 cents per share) on revenues of $32.5 million, up 2.9% from the year-ago period.

Execs with MaxLinear and Entropic Communications used a conference call on Tuesday afternoon to amplify the reasons why they think a proposed merger makes sense, holding that they complement each other technologically and financially and, together, will strengthen their position in the connected home.

So far, Wall Street seems to like the deal and the potential it will give the combined entity to pursue a broader addressable market. In mid-afternoon trading Wednesday, Entropic shares were up 35 cents ($12.78%) to $3.05 each, while MaxLinear shares enjoyed 24 cent rise (2.82%) to $8.76.

The financial terms of the deal value Entropic at $3.01 per share, based on MaxLinear’s closing price on February 2, so it’s already trading above that.

And the value of the deal is already receiving some static. A handful of securities and shareholder rights law firms, including Tripp Levy, Rigrodsky & Long, Johnson & Weaver, and Brower Piven, have already swooped in to announce they are investigating the proposed deal, holding that MaxLinear’s offer undervalues Entropic. Some cite analyst projections that the stock is worth at least $5 per share.

Back to the call, Dr. Kishore Seendripu, MaxLinear’s CEO, discussed the parallels and complementary assets each side brings to the table,  noting that the combined entity have several shared customers, including Arris, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and Pace, among others.

“Financially, this is a great fit,” he proclaimed, presenting data showing that MaxLinear and Entropic are similar in scale and both are well capitalized -- $185 million in cash between them ($79 million from MaxLinear and $106 million from  Entropic).

While use of WiFi for video distribution continues to surge, MaxLinear still sees plenty of potential for Entropic’s Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) technology – used as a high-speed IP backbone for whole-home DVRs and home networking adapters. “We see MoCA as the connectivity technology of choice in north America from a quality of service perspective,” Seendripu said, citing MoCA’s adoption by cable operators and telco and satellite TV operators.

He also said MaxLinear intends to follow through with Entropic’s current plans for set-top systems-on-chip (SoCs) – to support current products and design opportunities, but won’t invest in the development of new set-top box SoC products.

Dr. Ted Tewskbury, Entropic’s interim president and CEO, said his company conducted an extensive review and “believes this to be best outcome for Entropic shareholders.”

While it’s business as usual for Entropic as the deal gets reviewed, Tewksbury did note that Entropic’s near-term potential is being driven by SoCs in HD-DTA devices, “which are showing a great deal of strength.” Entropic got into the set-top SoC game in 2012 via a $65 million acquisition of Trident Microsystems. At the time, it was viewed as a deal that would position Entropic to tangle with Broadcom. 

With SoCs not to be a part of the game plan long term, Seendripu downplayed such comparisons, calling it a “misconception” that a driver of Entropic acquisition is about pitting MaxLinear against Broadcom.

“We respect what Broadcom has done…they’re an incredible company to look up to, actually,” he said, adding that MaxLinear will be sticking to its core strategy to be a “world-class RF mixed signal PHY company.” 

In a deal that will further consolidate the silicon market for set-tops, high-speed home networking and cable broadband modems gear, MaxLinear announced Tuesday that it has inked a deal to acquire Entropic Communications. 

Under the deal, Entropic shareholders will receive $1.20 per share in cash and 0.2200 shares of MaxLinear common stock for each Entropic common share outstanding. MaxLinear said the implied total transaction value of the deal is about $287 million, with an implied enterprise value of $181 million, net of Entropic’s cash balance as of Dec. 31, 2015. MaxLinear expects the deal will achieve operating synergies in excess of $20 million in the first full calendar year post-close.

Shares of Entropic were up 21 cents (7.78%) to $2.91 each in after-hours trading Tuesday.

MaxLinear, which expects to close the deal in the second quarter of 2015, is making its move following a recent rough path for Entropic, a San Diego-based  maker of set-top chipsets and Multimedia over Coax  (MoCA) technologies.

Last June, Entropic announced a major restructuring, followed in September with word that its board had authorized the company to pursue “strategic options.” In November, Entropic announced that troubled, former president and CEO Patrick Henry was leaving, naming Dr. Ted Tewskbury (pictured) as its interim president and CEO. At the time, Entropic also said it would discontinue all new set-top box SoC product development.

MaxLinear, which counts Broadcom among its competitors, said the deal with add significant scale to its analog/mixed-signal business, allow it to expand its addressable market, and bolster its intellectual property, noting that Entropic has about 1,500 issued and pending patents.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to bring together two talented and largely complementary teams, as we increase our capabilities to solve the most difficult analog and mixed-signal RF challenges in Broadband markets," said Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear, in a statement.

"I share Kishore's enthusiasm for this combination, which we believe maximizes value for Entropic's shareholders, employees and customers,” added Tewskbury, who will join the MaxLinear board when the deal is wrapped up. “These are two excellent companies in the industry, and I believe our stakeholders will benefit from the resources and scale that the combination will provide."

MaxLinear also reaffirmed fourth quarter guidance, with revenues expected to be in the range of $32 million to $33 million. MaxLinear is to report Q4 results on Feb. 9, 2015.

Entropic announced fourth quarter results on Tuesday (February 3), posting revenues of $42.6 million, and a net loss of $25.5 million, or 28 cents per share. Entropic pulled in revenues of $191.6 million for all of 2014, down from $259.4 million for 2013. 

There are no qualified or certified DOCSIS 3.1 products to speak of yet, but some suppliers are already starting to talk up components that provide “network compatibility” with the emerging multi-gigabit cable IP platform.

Intel and MaxLinear announced Friday that they have co-developed a next-gen cable modem/gateway chipset designed to work on DOCSIS 3.1-powered networks while also baking in a DOCSIS 3.0 implementation that can bond up 32 downstream channels – a requirement for D3.1 modems, they said.

The first wave of DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be hybrids that can support both DOCSIS 3 .1 and DOCSIS 3.0 spectrum, a setup that should help to smooth cable’s migration path to D3.1, a platform that will be capable of delivering 10 Gbps in the downstream, and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream.

The DOCSIS 3.0 bonding configuration in the new 32-channel Intel/MaxLinear product will support downstream bursts of 1.2 Gigabits per second in North American settings (6MHz-wide channels), and up to 1.6 GHz on EuroDOCSIS systems that use 8MHz-wide channels.

Intel and MaxLinear didn’t say when the new chip will be ready for commercial shipments (Multichannel  News will update the story when those facts are known), but they did note that the new 32-channel system is made to deliver 33% percent more downstream punch in the same power envelope.

Update: Intel confirmed that the new chipset is currently sampling to customers, with volume shipping slated for the fourth quarter of 2014. The chip is also paired with the ability to bond up to 8 upstream channels.

The chipset, to be demonstrated at the IBC show in Amsterdam, combines an upgraded form of Intel’s Puma 6 DOCSIS silicon with MaxLinear’s MxL268 Full-Spectrum Capture tuner, which can obtain channels for bonding from anywhere along the cable spectrum. They said the chip provides a “pin-compatible upgrade path” from 16 to 24 to 32 channels.

“By listening to our customers, we have been able to satisfy the market need and quickly bring a 32-channel solution to complement our Puma 6 family to market,” said Ran Senderovitz, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Service Provider Division, in a statement.

Instead of using 6 MHz- or 8MHz-wide channels, the DOCSIS 3.1-facing side of coming hybrid D3.0/D3.1 modems will utilize orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a technique already popular in the wireless realm that will enable operators to pack tiny subcarriers into wide blocks of bandwidth and utilize higher levels of modulation that can deliver more bits per hertz. When paired with a low density parity-check (LDPC), a Forward Error Correction (FEC) format that uses less bandwidth than the current Reed-Solomon approach, DOCSIS 3.1 is expected to be about 50% more bandwidth-efficient than DOCSIS 3.0.

CableLabs issued the first product specs for DOCSIS 3.1 last fall; deployments are expected to be well underway by 2016.

Last June, Broadcom announced a DOCSIS 3.0 chip that can bond 32 downstream channel and 8 upstream channels, but has yet revealed its DOCSIS 3.1 product roadmap. STMicroelectronics, another chipmaker, is also expected to toss its hat into the D3.1 ring.

MaxLinear’s lowered outlook for the third quarter announced Monday caused its stock to drop more than 17% and that apparently applied pressure on Arris shares, which dipped almost 7%.

MaxLinear, a maker of silicon for cable modems and set-top boxes, cut its third quarter revenue forecast to $32 million to $33 million, down from previous guidance of $36.5 million to $38 million.

The reason: a 25% decline in cable revenues related to a push-out of requests for top-of-the-line  DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems that can bond 24 downstream channels, apparently caused by a build-up in the first quarter of 2014. MaxLinear was expecting a sequential decline in cable revenues in the range of 2% to 5%.

MaxLinear’s reduced forecast was “likely the largest factor pressuring Arris stock today,” Raymond  James analyst Simon Leopold wrote in a research note Tuesday, pointing out that Arris, at 28% of revenue, is MaxLinear’s largest customer.

Arris also presented at Raymond James’ North American Equities Conference in London Tuesday morning, and Leopold said he did not attribute the sell-off of Arris shares to anything management said there, which included a reiteration of recent concerns about a possible spending pause tied to further carrier consolidation – notably the pending Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV mergers.

Leopold said Arris maintained third quarter guidance of $1.37 billion to $1.41 billion in sales with pro-forma EPS in the range of $0.69 to $0.74, as it has already built possible market softness into its guidance “along with some share shifts from ARRIS in favor of Pace at Comcast.”

Leopold, who kept his "strong buy" rating on Arris shares, also pointed out  that MaxLinear only represents about $9 million, or less than 1% of Arris’s cost of goods sold.

MaxLinear said it’s also seeing preliminary indications of a slower product ramp for some satellite gateway platforms, too.

“We are continuing to review these trends, which could also affect our upcoming fourth quarter 2014 revenue guidance," said Dr. Kishore Seendripu, president and CEO of MaxLinear, in a statement. “Despite the near term challenges in our business, we remain enthusiastic about our long-term growth prospects and design win traction across our Cable and Satellite markets.”

MaxLinear shares closed down $1.51 (17.22%) to $29.44 each Tuesday. Arris closed down $2.09 (6.63%) to $29.44, but was up 1.94% in after-hours trading.