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To: Bruce Cullen who wrote (64088)	10/1/1999 4:32:00 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 120523

Technology News Fri, 01 Oct 1999, 4:27am EDT Broadcom May Supply All Chips for 3 Million Cablevision Boxes, CEO Says By Erik Schatzker Broadcom May Supply All Chips for Cablevision Boxes, CEO Says Squaw Valley, California, Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Broadcom Corp. may supply all the semiconductors for the 3 million cable television set-top boxes that Cablevision Systems Corp. is buying from Sony Corp., Chief Executive Henry Nicholas said. Nicholas said he expects Sony to buy many if not all of the chips it needs from Broadcom, the No. 1 maker of semiconductors for digital set-top boxes and cable modems. He declined to say when the sales will begin. ''We're confident that we'll end up with a very significant part of the silicon content in that box,'' he said in an interview at Telecosm '99 in Squaw Valley, California. Broadcom, which started by making chips that speed Internet access for homes and businesses and for digital TV converters, stands to benefit as cable operators move to combine those functions in a single box. Cablevision, the largest cable-TV company in the New York metropolitan area, last month agreed to pay Sony $1 billion for 3 million such boxes. The kind of digital set-top boxes that Cablevision is buying use three or four chips to combine phone access, interactive programming, more channels and Internet access on TV sets. Nicholas said the agreement is ''material and important'' for Broadcom. It won't be its biggest, though. The company sells more to Motorola Inc., which buys semiconductors for its cable modems, and General Instrument Corp., a maker of set-top boxes. Motorola Acquisition Motorola last month agreed to buy General Instrument, a move Nicholas expects will benefit his company. Broadcom shares fell after the acquisition was unveiled amid concern that the company would lose General Instrument sales to Motorola's chip division. The share drop ''puzzled me,'' Nicholas said. The acquisition ''lets us to take a lot of the things we do with Motorola and blend them with General Instrument.'' Broadcom shares fell 3/4 to 109 yesterday. The stock has gained 81 percent this year, giving the Irvine, California-based company the currency to make five acquisitions since June. Nicholas said any future acquisitions will involve software makers or companies with strong engineering staffs, rather than semiconductor makers. ''We don't need to buy new technology,'' Nicholas said. ''But if we have to acquire a company to get one human being, we'll still do that.'' Two of the five companies were makers of network chips. Another was of a maker of digital-video decoders. None was publicly traded. Broadcom's most recent acquisitions were HotHaus Technologies Inc. and AltoCom Inc., both software makers. Nicholas said he's looking for similar companies whose technologies make Broadcom's chips more powerful. HotHaus, for example, makes software that lets data networks carry digital voice and fax traffic. Its products run on network equipment that uses Broadcom chips.