RF Magic announced two Channel Stacking Switch (CSS) RF ICs for European and Asian Digital Broadcast Satellite (DBS) Low Noise Block Converters (LNBs) and multi-switches. The RF5210 and RF5220 CSS ICs allow LNBs and multi-switches to multiplex multiple channels from DBS satellites onto a single coaxial cable enabling connection to multi-tuner set top boxes (STBs) and multiple STBs. Traditionally, multiple tuners have meant an increase in cabling into the home to connect the DBS outdoor unit (ODU) to each tuner. New tuners or STBs, each requiring a new cable drop, introduce substantial cost burdens and a barrier to achieving higher adoption rates and increased average revenue per unit (ARPU). The RF5210 and RF5220 CSS ICs reduce installation cabling complexity and cost for new DBS installations, and provide a simple upgrade capability for add-on STB installations or replacement multi-tuner STB installations by utilizing existing cabling.

Designed with a monolithic 6x4 cross-point RF switch fabric integrated with three separate RF translators, the RF5210 connects up to three inputs and translates any input channel to any of three output channel assignments. Two RF5210s can be cascaded to input all four bands from one satellite and stack up to six output channels. The RF5220 supports two inputs and two stacked outputs, and two RF5210s can be cascaded to support all four bands of one satellite and up to four stacked output channels. Other combinations of these ICs can be designed into LNBs and multi-switches to support up to all four input bands from three satellites and up to 12 stacked output channels on one cable into a dwelling.