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Please refer to Set-Top Box Video System on Chip (SoC) Semiconductors to ensure you are viewing the latest forecasts.
The worldwide set-top box market contains various submarkets, including the Pay TV markets and free-to-air markets. Semiconductors (or, more specifically, System on Chips or SoCs) for digital set-top boxes perform a tuning function and a decoding function. In addition, they must present a user experience via middleware layers and a program guide. Historically, Broadcom and STMicro have been the strongest in the worldwide markets, but MStar (which will soon be fully integrated with MediaTek following a competitive delay of the display elements of the acquisition), overtook the discontinued STMicro group in 2015. The birth of IPTV platforms brought a round of innovative younger startups into the market, but they have slowly been exiting the market through various consolidations. In addition, the integration of home networking technologies – especially MoCa, but also from a design perspective, HomePlug and G.hn around the multiroom DVR, once a separate chip, have been integrated, further putting pressure on standalone players. In recent years, Asian markets have brought newer set-top box IC players onto the scene, growing in expertise.