Research and Markets has announced the addition of Frost & Sullivan's new report "World Market for Semiconductors in Set-top Boxes" to their offering.

“World Market for Semiconductors in Set-top Boxes”

The semiconductor industry has been revamping from the recession, and this trend is witnessed in the set-top box (STB) market as well. The STB market, despite the decline in sales in 2010, has recovered in the last quarter. The market is poised to witness double-digit growth rates in the future. This study focusses on three main components of the STB, namely decoders, demodulators, and tuners. The individual market forecasts and an update on the technology trends are provided in this research service.

This report provides an analysis of the key components of the set-top box (STB) market. The focus areas include market participants and their shares, industry challenges, market drivers and restraints, future technology, and the market growth potential. In this research expert analysts thoroughly examine the following markets: tuners, demodulators, and decoders.

Market Overview

In the world set-top box markets, trends point to rapid transition from cable services to the current high definition (HD) video broadcasting. Having registered over 50 per cent growth of the subscriber base in the year 2009, the European market particularly France has displayed a tremendous Internet protocol TV, (IPTV) adoption rate in recent years. The IPTV segment is poised for enormous growth in the near future. Currently, IPTV is being implemented across Europe and is gaining momentum in other countries, challenging traditional STBs, notes the analyst of this research service. Reduction in subscription prices, high quality of video service, and bundling with other customized value-added services (VAS) have steered the gravitation toward IPTV.

Burgeoning STB sales in the Asia Pacific markets have led to a demand upsurge for tuners in those regions. A wide range of application deployments for tuners is being explored. Silicon tuners are replacing traditional CAN tuners and a spike in sales of silicon tuners is expected in the future. Integration chips that feature a demodulator, decoder, and tuner in a single chip are a popular choice as they reduce both board space and overall cost. The MPEG decoder market is slated for tremendous growth in the long run, owing to new technology deployments. A chip with a mix of MPEG2/MPEG4 capability will be initially deployed and this will eventually be supplanted by MPEG4 chips.