With the Federal Communications Commission in a mood to dispense separable security waivers for digital terminal adapters (DTAs), there looks like there’s going to be a business for reintegrating what once was torn asunder.

Broadcom claims to be first with a DTA chip that once again integrates a tuner and switchable content protection.

Broadcom’s BCM7002 system-on-a-chip (SoC) supports Comcast’s Digital DTA 4.0 technology.

The switchable content protection allows a single device to be used with multiple content protection systems. As a result, one product can be inventoried and deployed on a number of content protection networks, supporting multiple content protection systems, and moved from one network to another without changes.

Integration typically leads to a decrease in the size of the finished product, and it should be no different here. Broadcom says its DTA reference design is of a product that measures only 3.25 inches x 2.25 inches.

The description of the Broadcom chip reveals a little bit about how Comcast could leverage the DTA 4.0 specification to pave the way for the expanded network capacity to support more HD content and more value-added services such as video-on-demand and higher-speed DOCSIS 3.0 data and voice services.

The chip will support 1 GHz of spectrum. The chip combines a 1 GHz SCTE 40+ cable tuner that Broadcom says exceeds the SCTE 40 specification.