Lucent, LSI, and TI. All working on MPEG2 transport..............
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LUCENT AND LSI LOGIC GET ON THE 1394 BUS: TI DEVELOPS FIREWIRE MPEG-2 TRANSPORT CHIP
Chip manufacturers and designers are doing their part to help grow the market for products that take advantage of the 1394 high-speed bus.
In-Stat prognosticators see so much activity around Firewire-an interface used to connect PC and consumer electronics equipment-they project the market for 1394 consumer and professional products to reach 460 million units by 2001.
Last week Lucent Technologies Inc. [LU] committed to get into the chip side of the market and LSI Logic Corp. [LSI] announced plans to enter the 1394 chip design business. Texas Instruments Inc. [TI] plans to increase its stake in the technology with the delivery of a chip for set-top boxes that can transport MPEG-2 and DSS data over the bus at 200 Mbps.
Lucent Targets Storage
Lucent is working on a 1394 ATA interconnect device that will let disk drive, CD-ROM drive and DVD drive manufacturers add Firewire to their products. Operating at 33 Mbps, the chip integrates an ATA controller, a 1394 link layer and a 1394 physical layer. Lucent will make samples of the chip available in November and expects production quantities to ship in early 1998. Bundled with software, the chips will sell for $9.50 in quantities of 1,000.
LSI has licensed 1394 intellectual property from Sand Microelectronics Inc. and plans to offer the building blocks for a link layer and mixed-signal 400 Mbps physical layer chip. LSI officials said they expect to make their models available in December or early 1998.
TI's Tack on MPEG-2
TI's MPEG2Lynx (model TSB12LV41) is expected to be the first chip on the market to assemble MPEG packets on-chip, offloading that task from a system's microprocessor or microcontroller. The chip, which comes in 8-bit and 16-bit varieties, accepts decoded MPEG-2data and automatically time stamps it, inserts a header and assembles it. The MPEG2Lynx is expected to be available in the fourth quarter and will be priced at $13.94 in quantities of 1,000.
TI plans to offer the MPEG2Lynx along with its family of DSP-based set-top chipsets, which come packaged with an integrated 32-bit RISC processor, MPEG-2 decoder and an advanced graphics accelerator.
TI also sells a one-port 100 Mbps physical layer device and two three-port devices capable of 100 Mbps or 200 Mbps transfer rates.
In 1394 product news, Sun Microsystems Inc. [SUN] expects full support for 1394 in Java Stations, desktops and workgroup servers next year. On the printer front, Seiko-Epson Corp., Fuji Photo Film Co. and Fujitsu Ltd. are making efforts to incorporate 1394 into their products. Fujitsu also is working to add 1394 to future PCs. (LSI Logic, 800/574-4286; Lucent Technologies, 800/372-2447; Sand Microelectronics, 408/235-8600; Texas Instruments, 800/477-8924.)
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