Offering another clear signal that the set-top box business is tough sledding, chipmaker STMicroelectronics said it will scuttle development on new platforms and standard products for set-top boxes and home gateways and apply a bigger focus on silicon for connected cars and the broader Internet of Things sector.

The decision, said COO Jean-Marc Chery, to discontinue those products “is the result of an extensive review of various options” that originated last May.

The bug-out also cedes more of the STB chip market to competitors such as  Broadcom Corp., Intel Corp. and MaxLinear.

It also appears to be a blow to the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 market. STMicro had D3.1-based cable modem products in development and was considered to be key third supplier for that silicon beside Broadcom and Intel, which has been teaming with MaxLinear on DOCSIS chips.

STMicro has been asked to clarify if its decision to get out of the STB and gateway chip-making business also means the end to its DOCSIS 3.1 endeavors.  Multichannel News will update this story when the company responds. However, the company does list "DOCSIS Solutions" under the "Digital  Set-Top Box ICs" product category. 

Chery cited a slow market and M&A delays at operators and at box makers, as well as increasing competition on low-end boxes and high R&D costs as contributors to STMicro’s ultimate decision.  “And losses are unsustainable – about a half a billion dollars cumulatively in the last two years,” the exec noted.

The chipmaker’s move comes amid big shifts in the set-top market marked by consolidation and a shift toward gateway-client architectures and the virtualization of STB functions in connected devices such as smart TVs, streaming players, tablets and smartphones. On the M&A front,  Cisco Systems sold its STB business to Technicolor, and Arris, the world’s top STB supplier, recently closed its acquisition of Pace Plc.

And the decision will impact STMicro’s employees. The company said it will “redeploy” about 600 employees currently associated with STMicro’s set-top-box business to support its digital automotive and microcontrollers businesses.  That could ultimately affect about 1,400 employees worldwide -- 430 in France through a “voluntary departure plan,” about 670 in Asia and about 120 in the U.S.

STMicro expects the moves to save about $170 million per year and result in restructuring costs of the same amount.

Chip and gateway makers at this week’s IBC show in Amsterdam are showing off a new line of gear based on DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks.

DOCSIS 3.1 trials and deployments are expected to start late this year and begin to ramp up in 2016. CableLabs has opened up certification testing for DOCSIS 3.1-based products. 

-Broadcom unveiled trio of DOCSIS 3.1-based devices for the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), a high-density system that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM./

Broadcom said those products – the BCM3047, BCM31442 and BCM3222 -- enable CCAP vendors to build and deploy DOCSIS 3.1-compliant equipment. Early adopters of Broadcom's DOCSIS 3.1 technology include cable operators such as Comcast and Liberty Global, and CCAP equipment suppliers such as Arris and Harmonic, Broadcom said.

"Today's new CCAP infrastructure devices, combined with the BCM3390 cable modem platform, provide a complete DOCSIS 3.1-based silicon solution with advanced capabilities that effectively compete with speeds offered by fiber deployments,” said Dan Marotta, EVP and  GM of Broadcom’s Broadband & Connectivity Group, in a statement.

"End-to-end DOCSIS 3.1 technology, in both cable infrastructure and cable modems, is critical for subscribers to receive Gigabit speeds in the home," added Balan Nair, Liberty Global’s EVP and CTO. "DOCSIS 3.1 is making it possible for Liberty Global to deliver enhanced services to consumers later this year."

The BCM3047 is a single-chip transmitter that can enable transmission up to 1.2 GHz on the cable plant; the BCM31442 Receiver is a burst receiver built on D3.1 specs that can support up to 300 MHz of upstream spectrum; and the BCM3222 MAC device is capable of supporting up to 25 Gbps, Broadcom said, noting that all three chips are currently sampling.

-Intel will be showing off the Puma 7 systems-on-chip, which is built on the company’s 14nm process technology. The platform, Intel said, will also integrate support for 4x4 802.11ac WiFi. Arris is evidently one of its early D3.1 CPE partners.

“We are continually evolving our advanced HFC network to ensure that our customers have the best, fastest high-speed Internet service available. DOCSIS 3.1 is a pillar of that evolution and fundamental to our plan to offer new gigabit speed tiers to our customers,” said Tony Werner, executive vice president and CTO at Comcast, in a statement. We are excited about Intel’s use of its latest generation 14nm process technology to drive better energy efficiency and enable compelling new form factors for cable broadband gateways.”

-Sagemcom introduced the F@st 3890, a DOCSIS 3.1-based media gateway equipped with 4x4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac WiFi. Sagemcom’s entry, like other early D3.1 modem entrants, will be hybrids that can support both DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 3.0-based traffic. The device also bakes in SWAN, the French supplier’s modular software suite for apps and services.

-And there’s some news on the DOCSIS 3.0 front. Celeno Communications has teamed with STMicroelectronics on a D3.0 reference design that integrates Celeno’s WiFi 802.11ac and 802.11n chips with ST’s Alicante CableLabs-certified chipset.

STMicroelectronics officially tossed its hat into the DOCSIS 3.1 ring Tuesday with the unveiling of a chipset designed for an emerging platform that will deliver multi-gigabit speeds over HFC networks.

STMicro’s new D3.1-based chip, the STiD325 (codenamed “Barcelona”), is currently sampling with “lead customers.” The chipmaker, which will compete in the DOCSIS 3.1 CPE sector against Broadcom and Intel, has not announced any vendors that will use the STiD325 in broadband CPE products, but noted that it has participated in the CableLabs Acceptance Test Plan development committees and interoperability tests.

The company also stated that the Barcelona “early platform” operated successfully in what it called the world’s first end-to-end DOCSIS 3.1 field test conducted earlier this year. STMicro didn’t go into further detail, but Comcast has been conducting field trials of DOCSIS 3.1-based traffic, and revealed last month that it expects to follow with a market trial in the fourth quarter of 2015.

STMicro, which is demonstrating its new cable broadband tech at this week’s CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, Colo., said the STiD325 is for a wide range of broadband CPE products, including stand-alone cable modems, embedded media terminal adapters (which support cable  VoIP), as well as video gateways. Barcelona also supports RDK-B, a version of the Reference Design Kit software stack that’s made to work with broadband devices and set-top boxes. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global are managing the RDK.

STMicro’s Barcelona chipset will be a hybrid in the sense that it will support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 traffic. On the D3.1 side, it will handle two blocks of 196 MHz-wide OFDM downstream spectrum, and two 96 MHz-wide OFDM-A upstream channel blocks; on the D3.0 end, the chipset will support 32 single-carrier QAM downstream channels and 8 upstream QAM channels. While DOCSIS 3.1 is designed for capacities of up to 10 Gbps downstream and at least 1 Gbps upstream, the initial wave of D3 .1 modems will support about 5 Gbps/1Gbps when fully loaded.

"Prepared to be among the first commercial DOCSIS 3.1 deployments, our innovative platform architecture supports our ambition to make Barcelona a reference in the Cable industry," said Philippe Notton, group vice president and general manager of STMicroelectronics' Consumer Product Division, in a statement. "As a standalone for multi-gigabit cable gateways or combined with our Monaco SoC for an UltraHD media gateway, ST can offer complete solutions for fast design."

Las Vegas -- Amid all the new 4K TVs, connected wearables and other fancy gadgets, this year’s International CES has also served as a progress report of sorts for DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s next-gen IP platform that will be capable of delivering up to 10 Gbps downstream and as much as 2 Gbps in the upstream.

As we reported Tuesday, Broadcom used the show to introduce the first D3.1-based CPE reference design, dubbed the BCM93390.  I had a chance to drop by the Broadcom booth, and they did in fact have a living, breathing design that was kicking out about 4 Gbps in the downstream, tying it to a prototype FPGA-powered cable modem termination system (CMTS). 

And what you see here is just an initial design for OEM partners to follow as they develop the actual DOCSIS 3.1 modem and gateway products. Jay Kirchoff, VP of marketing for Broadcom's broadband and connectivity group, said the chipmaker will be working to shrink it down posthaste. Broadcom is sampling the design now, and is in verification for production for the second half of 2015.

And new D3.1 products will cost more than a DOCSIS 3.0 design – no surprise, since the initial wave of D3.1 products will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 traffic, a decision that will help cable operators seed the network with D3.1 CPE as they migrate to the new platform.

As a reminder, CableLabs is expected to start official D3.1 certification  testing by mid-year. Some big operators, including Comcast and Liberty Global, are expected to move ahead with initial deployments in the second half of the year.

And Broadcom wasn’t the only silicon vendor getting its DOCSIS 3.1 on here at CES. STMicroelectronics  is also demonstrating its platform. A spokesman said the chipmaker has been demoing its wares with CMTSs from Arris and Cisco Systems, and confirmed that the company was one of six vendors that participated in last month’s CableLabs DOCSIS 3.1 plugfest.