EchoStar Taps Conexant for Set-Top Chips

EchoStar Communications Corp. will use Conexant Systems Inc.’s single-chip set-top-box solution, the companies announced Wednesday.

Conexant’s "CX24154" will enable EchoStar’s Dish Network direct-broadcast satellite service to deliver cost-effective, high performance digital set-tops that support a wide range of consumer video services and are ideal for auxiliary TV-viewing locations.

The CX24154 integrates an MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Expert Group) audio/video decoder, an "ARM920" 32-bit RISC (reduced-instruction-set computer) processor, a two-dimensional graphics accelerator, a TV encoder, a channel 3/4 radio-frequency modulator, a video/graphics display-compositing controller and a set of peripheral input/output ports for front- and back-panel connectors.