Entropic Communications, Inc. [Nasdaq:ENTR], a provider of silicon solutions to enable connected home entertainment, announced the release of the RF5101, a new radio frequency integrated circuit recently added to its Band Translation Switch (BTS) product family. The chip was developed to meet the performance requirements of EchoStar Technologies and is being integrated into EchoStar's latest customer premise equipment (CPE) including its Low Noise Block Feedhorn (LNBF) and its Multi-Switches.

Entropic's direct broadcast satellite (DBS) Outdoor Unit solutions focuses on meeting the needs of DBS providers and has lowered installation costs, reducing installation complexity, and increasing installment efficiency. With BTS technology, EchoStar is able to deliver programming from multiple satellites to two set top boxes (STBs) or a digital video recorder (DVR) over a single coaxial cable. BTS products have been successfully deployed in millions of homes in North America and enable both cost effective installations and easy multi-tuner STB upgrades.

Entropic's RF5101 builds upon the foundation of the RF5100 BTS IC, which offers four stacked inputs and three stacked outputs with each output supporting up to two STBs or a DVR. The RF5101 IC adds the key new feature of a dedicated 3.1 GHz output. With the availability of this on-chip 3.1 GHz frequency source there is no longer a need for a dedicated high-frequency dielectric resonance oscillator (DRO) for RF to IF frequency mixing purposes. Eliminating the high-frequency DRO improves both design cycle times and performance. High-frequency DROs have been identified as root causes of frequency drifts issues over temperature and time making the RF5101 a solution for EchoStar offering improved reliability.