Cable Show 2009: TI Ships 1 Million DOCSIS 3.0 Chips

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Texas Instruments has delivered more than 1 million DOCSIS 3.0-based chips to cable-modem manufacturers including Motorola, Arris and Cisco Systems.

TI's Puma 5 DOCSIS 3.0 product family passed the one-million mark sometime in the first quarter of 2009, said Peter Percosan, executive director of broadband strategy in the company's Digital Connected Home business.

"The macroeconomics are messing things up for a lot of businesses, but we're making progress," he said. "We want to let everybody know we're still on track."

He noted that the 1 million milestone for TI does not mean that many cable modems have been deployed or sold to MSOs.

TI's main competitor for DOCSIS 3.0 silicon is Broadcom, which introduced its first products in the category in January. Broadcom's single-chip BCM3380 can bond up to eight channels for up to 400-Mbps downstream speeds.

However, TI is to date the only silicon provider whose DOCSIS 3.0 chips are in cable modems that have passed CableLabs certification.

The Puma 5 family can deliver up to 400-Mbps downstream, in a "quad-QAM" chip. TI also markets a "cost-optimized" solution providing 200-Mbps downstream.