ATI Remains Bullish on DTV Set-Top Market Chipmaker launches
second generation set-top design
-- Wed, 14 Apr 1999 23:13 EST
Apr. 14, 1999 (MULTIMEDIA WEEK, Vol. 8, No. 14 via COMTEX) -- With
last week's introduction of its Set-top-Wonder II digital set-top
platform, ATI Technologies [ATYT] continues to build a DTV set-top
market for its Rage chip line.
The Toronto-based chip maker has already cornered the PC graphics
chip sector, supplying 24 percent of the worldwide graphics market
according to Mercury Research.
And as more broadcasters continue to sign on with digital signals and
cable continues to consolidate and infuse more money into digital, ATI
is betting on a digital set-top market that could be even more
lucrative than its current focus.
That market could see worldwide shipments of digital set-tops for
terrestrial, cable and satellite totaling 14 million units this year
alone for a $4.7 billion market, according to In-Stat.
ATI signaled its intent to take on DTV last year when it introduced
the Rage 128, which added MPEG-2 support for DTV formats along with DVD
decoding. The company also has a $187.5 million agreement with General
Instrument Corp. [GIC] to supply Rage chips for GI's DCT-5000+ digital
set-tops, which will be launched this summer.
It's also a safe bet that the new design will eventually make its way
into the GI boxes, although ATI's director of set-top marketing, Dan
Eiref, wouldn't confirm that the boxes would integrate any more than
its Rage chips. Eiref says additional design wins will be revealed in
the coming months.
Rage XL Drives New Design
The new design builds on ATI's first generation Set-top Wonder
design, which targeted PCs when it was introduced a year ago.
Integrating the company's new Rage XL chip, launched in January, the
new architecture is MIPs-based, which provides a higher degree of
graphics performance, according to Eiref.
"Pound for pound, you get a lot more for your money [from a
MIPs-based processor] than you do with the Intel architecture [in the
first generation design]," Eiref says.
The design consists of a motherboard and Windows CE multimedia
drivers and demo applications. Included are the ATI Rage XL and Rage
Theater chips, one 250 MHz MIPS CPU, A TV tuner, hardware-assisted
MPEG-2 replay and a 56K soft-modem interface. Multiple PCI slots allow
OEMs to add other modulators such as VSB, QPSK, QAM and COFDM.
Santa Clara-based iCompression is supplying the MPEG-2 encoders for
VCR-functionality and system level software is provided by Rachis
Corp., a Maynard, Mass.-based software company that specializes in
integrating Windows CE capability into set-tops and network terminals.
V3, also based in Santa Clara, is supplying the PCI system controller
chip.
The new design would not have been possible without the Rage XL,
according to Eiref.
"In the set-top space, you need to blend video and graphics," Eiref
says. "For example, with electronic program guides, you want to blend
together the video and program guides. That capability wasn't in our
previous chips, but it is now in the Rage XL."
Focusing on Windows CE doesn't mean that ATI is counting out Java
capability in its design either, according to Eiref.
"We went with Windows CE for historical reasons," Eiref says. "We had
a huge amount of Windows 95 and Windows 98 code and found that CE was
very easy for us to port our existing code and drivers to CE. But that
doesn't mean we can't support other operating systems. CE and Java are
complimentary."
What sets ATI's architecture apart from competitors like TeraLogic
(which is currently pushing its Cougar DTV set-top reference design) is
the company's reputation in the PC graphics chip market. With ATI out
of the starting gate early enough, it can get ahead of another
competitor on the horizon, VM Labs, whose 3D-graphics rich Nuon chip
has been in development for the past several years, but which has been
quiet lately.
Still, ATI may have to adopt a different mindset to penetrate a
market that is occupied by established players in the set top market,
including General Instrument [GIC], Scientific Atlanta [SFA] and
Philips [PHG].
"The PC market tends to be higher-end - people are willing to spend
more for higher quality graphics," says Kevin Hawse, manager for
consumer device research with International Data Corporation. "In the
set-top market, you're talking about box builders who are looking at
the lowest cost solution that can handle their demands. While
performance is still an issue, it has to be balanced with cost."
(ATI, Dan Eiref, 905/882-2600, IDC, Kevin Hawse, 508/872-8200)
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Copyright Phillips Publishing, Inc.
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