1. © 2005 Pace Micro Technology Challenges ahead in low power set-top box design Presentation at the ‘International Stakeholder Meeting’ San Francisco - 29th June 2005 Ken Dale – Consultant Engineer, Pace Micro Technology

2. 2 Background and introduction  Pace Micro Technology profile  An international company supplying set-top box product in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand  Pace have been an Energy Star partner with several compliant products  Committed to supporting energy efficiency standards worldwide  Speaker profile  Principal job is to design the power architecture and power solutions for Pace products  Additional role is to promote energy efficiency in those products, particularly so they meet existing voluntary standards and any future legislation  Pace prefer voluntary standards set by agreement and I have been active in seeking to set realistic limits  So why should business be concerned with energy efficiency?  City investors and analysts expect leading companies to have a credible environmental policy  It seems better to co-operate proactively than be forced by unrealistic legislation

3. 3 STB power consumption has been reduced, driven by voluntary targets  ‘Active Standby’ is specified by service providers if they require that the set- top box continues to receive signal  Power saving between full operation and active standby is limited  Operational power has come down so that the standby limit can be met  Greatest power saving is possible in more complex product Key is in the choice of power architecture, design of efficient power conversion and effective power management

4. 4 Challenge is to satisfy all 3 key drivers when designing for lower power COST RELIABILITY PERFORMANCE Improved by lower average operating temperature Higher energy efficiency allows greater flexibility in product size and design Main cost is a ‘one-off’ in software design Cost of any higher efficiency components partially offset by savings due to lower input power

5. 5 Examples of what helps to give an energy efficient design  Power management  Make use of power-down features provided in the main silicon  Where possible, use dynamic clock management to match processing speed to activity actually required  Disable circuit blocks when they are not required  In active-standby, for example, disable unused tuners, MPEG decoder, video/audio DACs, NTSC encoder, hard disk drive, modem, peripheral ports  Power conversion efficiency  Choose power architecture to give low distribution and regulation losses  Design with components which give best practical efficiency over all modes of operation Pace HDTV PVR

6. 6 Newer digital TV technologies present energy efficiency challenges  High Definition video  Faster data rate from signal source  Increased processing to decode  Multi-room, multi-decode  Higher overall power and larger number of circuit blocks to manage  Need to know which programme streams are required at any particular time / location and power manage the hardware in the best way  The STB is less likely to be put into the lowest power standby state from a remote location  It may not be clear when the standby mode can be used  However, multi-room may result in fewer STBs in the home

7. 7 Who benefits from better energy efficiency?  The Manufacturer can have a more reliable product  The Service Provider should have fewer product returns  The Shareholder has more confidence in the future of the business  The Customer has lower energy bills  The Government is helped with its energy policy  The Environment is better protected Thank you and any questions?