Sigma Designs to Launch New ARM-Based Chipset Family With HEVC at CES

MILPITAS, CA–(Marketwired – Jan 6, 2014) – CES LAS VEGAS — Sigma Designs® (NASDAQ: SIGM), a leading provider of System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for home entertainment, control, connectivity and converging multimedia delivery, is to launch its new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)-capable SMP8750 family at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, NV (January 7-10, 2014). Combining the HEVC compression standard with a high performance ARM Cortex A9 CPU with an ARM Mali 400 GPU, the SMP8756 will offer a unique combination of performance, user experience and video quality.

Debuting at CES 2014 in Sigma Designs’ suite in Las Vegas Hotel, the Sigma SMP8756 has a wealth of features which make it the ideal chip for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), STB (set top box) manufacturers and service providers eager to deploy new HEVC services and benefit from bandwidth savings and video quality. HEVC is a new compression CODEC poised for deployment world-wide in the coming years. The SMP8750 series SoCs support HEVC’s Main-10 profile allowing processing of up to 10 bit color samples accepted as the standard for 4Kx2K, OTT (over the top) and IPTV content. The SMP8750 family will support FHD and 4kx2k resolutions. The new SMP8750 family offers SoCs at multiple cost and performance combinations allowing each SoC to offer optimal performance to price ratio for multiple STB platforms from zappers, PVR capable, Hybrid-broadcast and IPTV STBs.

Mustafa Ozgen, vice president and general manager Home Multimedia for Sigma Designs, said: “Sigma has a heritage of incorporating cutting edge CODECs and with the new 8756 family ushers in Sigma’s support for HEVC. We developed our HEVC core to scale from FHD to 4k for the entire family of SoCs. The SMP8756 is specifically designed to bring HEVC into client and multi-room DVR set top boxes at an affordable cost.”

The SMP8750 family migrates robust STB SoC components like broadcast TS processing, OTP and security infrastructure paired with an ARM A9 CPU and Mali GPU. The single-core ARM A9 CPU and 3000 DMIPS of application processing along with a Mali GPU combine to provide a dramatic performance profile for new 3D user interfaces, over-the-top and casual gaming applications. Incorporating Sigma’s industry-proven technologies such as secure media processing, multi-format Full-HD video decoding, VXP™ display processing, and field-proven AV software core, the SMP8756 is able to provide premium quality video experience. A software SDK is available for either Linux or Android platform development. Future certification of CAS technologies like Verimatrix and Nagravision are planned.

The chipset also demonstrates wide-ranging ecosystem compatibility, leveraging the widely supported ARM processing core, OpenGL ES, HTML-5 and others to ensure that a broad range of existing applications will run. It includes a wide range of hardware and software extensions to support the creation of complete system solutions; including global tuner/demodulator standards, wired and wireless network controllers, DTV middleware stacks and industry-leading IPTV middleware ports, such as Wyplay and OpenTV.

The SMP8756 comes with a full Software Suite, including libraries and services packaged under both Linux and Android development kits for rapid development. It incorporates managed power consumption, developed for both US and European regulatory compliance and is developed to a minimal R-BOM to allow smaller footprint and lower cost implementations.

Be among the first to see the new SMP8756 at CES 2014, Las Vegas Jan 7-10 at the Sigma Designs’ suite 2990 in the Las Vegas Hotel.

For more information on Sigma Designs, visit www.sigmadesigns.com
Follow us on Twitter: @sigma_designs
Join us on LinkedIn: sigma designs

About Sigma Designs

Sigma Designs, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIGM) is a world leader in connected media platforms. The company designs and builds the essential semiconductor technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s leading IPTV set-top boxes, DTV, connected media players, residential gateways, home control systems and more. For more information about Sigma Designs, please visit www.sigmadesigns.com.

Sigma Designs, Secure Media Processor, and the Sigma Designs logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Sigma Designs, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are believed to be trademarks of their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements about the anticipated features and benefits of Sigma’s products and solutions as well as the market opportunities for Sigma’s products and solutions. Actual results may vary materially due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, general economic conditions, including the rate of adoption of Sigma’s SMP8750 chipsets, Sigma’s ability to deploy and achieve market acceptance for Sigma’s products in its target markets, the ability of its SoCs to compete with other technologies or products in these markets as well as other risks that are detailed from time to time in Sigma’s SEC reports, including its quarterly report on Form 10-Q as filed December 12, 2013. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Sigma undertakes no obligation to publicly release or otherwise disclose the result of any revision to these forward-looking statements that may be made as a result of events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.