Anglo-French IP Partnership announces major design win for its DVB-S2 Modem Technology

Brest, France; Cambridge, England -- June 26, 2007 -- Broadband IP developers TurboConcept SAS (France) and Commsonic Ltd (England), announced today that Newtec CY, the market leading satellite communications equipment manufacturer, has adopted the companies' "SkyPlug" core technology for use in its Azimuth and Elevation series of DVB-S2-compliant modem systems. This announcement marks the first disclosed design win for the partnership, which first demonstrated prototype in 2005.

Combining high-performance and flexibility, Newtec's Azimuth demodulator supports all of the advanced features provided by the DVB-S2 Standard including Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) and high-order modulation schemes such as 32APSK to address broadcast, DSNG, distribution, trunking and interactive applications.

Based around TurboConcept's LDPC decoder and Commsonic's APSK demodulator, the SkyPlug core performs all of the synchronisation, demodulation and FEC decoding functions necessary to recover the transmitted frame sequence from a DVBS2-modulated carrier.

The core is targeted at both FPGA and ASIC platforms and caters for all of the operating profiles defined by the DVB-S2 Specification. Throughput and feature-set are configurable allowing system integrators to trade-off receiver complexity and cost before a design is realised.

"The SkyPlug demodulator/decoder was selected at the heart of Azimuth after extensive evaluation of a number of alternative baseband solutions." said Johan De Nolf, Product Manager for Azimuth at Newtec. "As an FPGA core, it was fundamental in helping us show the world's first 32APSK ACM demonstration at DVB-S2 trials in 2006 at the RAI Research Centre and the option to migrate from FPGA to structured ASIC is attractive because it ensures that we can keep costs down as the product family matures."

Jacky Tousch, CTO of TurboConcept, commented: "Newtec has earned an excellent reputation for the quality and performance of its products so, naturally, we are delighted to have been selected as their partners for DVB-S2. The fact that this has been achieved in the face of such tough competition demonstrates how well our integrated solution accommodates the advanced features provided by the Standard".

Paul Rudkin, Director at Commsonic, added: "After a slow start, DVB-S2 is picking up momentum with the launch of HDTV and broadband interactive satellite services. We are confident that this will be the first of a number of high-profile design wins for our core technology".

About Newtec

Since its establishment in 1985 in Belgium, Newtec has been among the market leaders of Satellite Communication, offering highly reliable products and solutions as DVB modulators, Digital TV & Radio Distribution networks, interactive TV networks and IP Broadband Access Networks to customers throughout the entire world.

With its ambitious policy of re-investment in R&D, Newtec is being recognized as the forerunner in several innovative satellite communication technologies, which eventually were published as industry standards (DVB, DVB-S2, DVB RCS and iSatTV Cenelec pr EN50478).

Newtec has regional offices located in Stamford (US), Singapore (Singapore), Beijing (China), Dubai (UAE), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Newtec is part of a group of companies that also includes Teamtec (manufacturing) in Belgium and Tellitec (IP software solutions) in Germany.
www.newtec.eu

About TurboConcept

Founded in 1999, TurboConcept is a leading provider of IP Cores for advanced FEC techniques - Turbo and LDPC codes. TurboConcept has a large catalogue of Convolutional and Product Turbo Codes and LDPC solutions for satellite and wireless communications markets. Specific standards covered by our Cores are : DVB-RCS, DVB-S2, WiMAX, HomePlug, CCSDS.
www.turboconcept.com

About Commsonic

Founded in 2000, Commsonic (www.commsonic.com) provides technology, IP and specialist design services in the area of broadcast communications. The CMS0009 and CMS0024 modulator cores are two members of the company's growing portfolio of broadcast physical-layer IP, which spans single-carrier (QAM) and multi-carrier (COFDM) modem technology.
www.commsonic.com