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TOKYO & BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 25, 1996--
Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T's
systems and technology businesses) have agreed to jointly develop a
set of semiconductor chips that together will perform all of the
functions needed for next-generation high-definition television
(HDTV) sets for the U.S. market. The chip set will be used by
Mitsubishi in its own planned HDTV receiver, and will be sold by both
companies to other TV receiver manufacturers.
HDTV, also known as Advanced Television, or ATV, is a proposed
new standard for television broadcasting that would replace the
45-year-old NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) standard
in the U.S. with a digital technology that can offer
movie-theater-quality picture and sound.
The Mitsubishi/Lucent chip set will receive HDTV broadcast
signals, process them, and display them on a high definition screen
all in compliance with specifications that the FCC recommended in
May.
The first samples of the chip set will be available from both
companies in early 1998.
"We believe that we are the first two companies to announce
plans to develop a complete HDTV chip set, and hope to be the first
to bring HDTV silicon to market," said Jay Kshatri, manager of
consumer video marketing in Lucent Technologies' Microelectronics
Group. "By doing so, we hope to speed the introduction and
acceptance of HDTV in the U.S."
"This chip set is an ambitious engineering undertaking,
comprising approximately ten million transistors and associated
circuitry," said Yoshiyuki Nakai, chief engineer, Microcomputer and
ASIC Division of Mitsubishi.
The chip set will consist of five application-specific
integrated circuits (ASICs):
-- a demodulator, which separates the digital signals from the
analog carrier wave on which they are transmitted;
-- a demultiplexer, which separates the audio portion of a
transmission from the video portion;
-- an image decoder, which decompresses an encoded video signal;
-- an audio decoder, which does the same for the audio portion
of the transmission; and
-- a display processor, which transforms decoded video signals
to various display formats.
The demodulator and demultiplexer chips are being developed by
Bell Laboratories, the research and development arm of Lucent
Technologies; the image decoder will be developed by Mitsubishi with
support from Bell Labs; and the audio decoder and display processor
chips are being developed by Mitsubishi.
"By collaborating with Lucent, we can shorten the time it would
take any one company to develop all five chips, and share the
development costs," said Nakai. "In so doing, we hope to have HDTV
sets in stores sooner, and with a lower price tag."
"We're combining Bell Labs' core competence in signal encoding
and decoding, transmission and processing, with Mitsubishi's deep
expertise in TV receiver system design, high definition display
technology, and audio and display processing technology," added
Kshatri.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and its North American affiliate,
Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc., are world-class suppliers of
semiconductors and electronic products for visual computing.
Mitsubishi combines its systems-level expertise and high-level
silicon process technology to provide chip, chip-set, and
system-on-a-chip solutions. The company is ranked among the top 10
worldwide semiconductor suppliers.
Lucent Technologies is a new company created as part of AT&T's
restructuring into three separate, publicly held companies. Its
Microelectronics Group designs and manufactures integrated circuits,
optoelectronic components, power systems, and printed circuit boards
for applications in the telecommunications and computing industries.
In addition to such components, Lucent Technologies offers public
and private networks, communications systems and software, and
consumer and business telephone systems. |
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