SDM provides significant capacity per costs gains
and breaks the 100Mbps Information Rate barrier on Cable

Information Rate Capacity vs Normalized Silicon Port Cost

t is worth illustrating the value of SDM in terms of Information Rate versus cost and then comparing that to QAM. There are several noteworthy items that the above chart illustrates:

1. Compared to existing QAM, SDM is always offers best capacity for cost.
2. SDM reduces in cost and capacities increase going from 6MHz to 18MHz bandwidth
3. QAM increases in cost going from 6MHz to 12MHz bandwidth
4. 1024QAM can not obtain an 100Mbps Information Rate
5. SDM goes well beyond 100Mbps Information Rate for substantially less cost than QAM

The following table makes two assumptions that are represented in the above graph:

1. The normalized cost will be that of 64/256QAM implementations, including silicon die cost and tuner cost. Stated previously, the silicon die size, and hence the cost of SDM integrated circuit and tuner, will not be more than the current cost of existing QAM. Today's QAM solutions are deployed in both U.S. 6MHz channel sizes and European sizes of 8MHz. Given that the same SDM silicon can be deployed in 6MHz, 12MHz, and 18MHz, the relative cost would 1.0 times, 0.5 times, and 0.33 times that of 6/8MHz QAM silicon die plus tuner costs.
2. Without details, the relative die cost plus tuner of 1024QAM or 64/256/1024QAM is estimated to be 25% more than that over todays existing 64/256QAM. When more is known about the costs of 1024QAM, this information will be updated.

The following table shows the digital capacity rated in Information Rate of Mbps veruse relative cost versus modulation and RF bandwidth.