From the CUBE thread:
To: BillyG (30459 )
From: David Nadalin
Sunday, Mar 8 1998 12:52PM EST
Reply # of 30478
Matsushita taps Rambus DRAMs for digital video
David Lammers
03/09/98
Electronic Engineering Times
Page 08
Copyright 1998 CMP Publications Inc.
Tokyo - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. will announce today that it has licensed Rambus memory and
logic-interface technology for use in digital televisions and other digital consumer products. Matsushita may
use the high-bandwidth Rambus channel with its Media Core Processor, a very long-instruction-word core
that it plans to use in DTVs, car-navigation systems, set-top boxes, DVD players and other videocentric
markets.
"This is a pretty big deal for Rambus," said Dataquest Inc. analyst Jonathan Cassell, who tracks ICs used in
digital consumer markets. "We're strong believers in the potential of the digital-TV market, and Rambus
DRAMs have the necessary bandwidth" to handle MPEG-2 decoding in high-definition DTVs.
DRAM granularity, which partly determines how many devices are required to fill the bus, is a major factor in
consumer systems, which often require only one or two memories. At peak rates, Direct Rambus provides 1.6
Gbytes/second from a single device, sufficient for the 600-Mbyte/s bandwidth needs of high-definition DTVs.
Only one or two 64-Mbit Direct Rambus DRAMs would be needed to enable the main processing functions
(signal transport, video decode and video-signal processing) in a digital TV.
Direct approach
Matsushita-the world's largest producer of consumer electronics-declined to comment before the press
conference scheduled for today. But the Osaka-based company is expected to confirm it will use Direct
Rambus DRAMs in digital TVs that are slated to be released in the U.S. market later this year or early in 1999.
At the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas, Matsushita had demonstrated a prototype DTV
using second-generation Concurrent Rambus memories and logic made by another manufacturer, a Rambus
spokesman said.
Matsushita is said to have licensed both memory and logic-interface technology from Rambus (Mountain
View, Calif.) and may use the license not only for consumer devices but also for personal-computer chips. |
