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To: Stoctrash who wrote (50100)	10/6/2000 2:35:25 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Philips' new chip doesn't seem to need an AViA chip with it............................................. newsalert.com October 05, 2000 14:13 Philips Semiconductors' Nexperia (TM) Home Entertainment Engines Fuel Explosive Growth of Interactive Set-Top Boxes Jump to first matched term Philips Semiconductors, a World Leader in Silicon System Solutions For Consumer Appliances, Has Introduced the pnx8500 - the First Chip In a New Family of Nexperia Home Entertainment Engines Targeted at Advanced Set-Top Boxes SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), today announced the first in a new family of silicon chips that will revolutionize the way we use television. With the ability to combine digital video, audio, graphics and Internet content into highly interactive program material, the company's new pnx8500 Nexperia(TM) Home Entertainment Engine will allow cable and satellite service providers to add a completely new tier of digital subscriber services to their existing TV program offerings. Viewers will benefit from much greater choice and personalization of programming material, together with true interactivity and access to a much broader range of services. In addition to the video-on-demand and time-shift recording facilities that will be standard on next-generation set-top boxes, enhanced subscriber services that can be delivered using the pnx8500 include personal video recording, interactive television, t-commerce, high-speed Internet access, gaming, and voice and video telephony. This unique new chip can also be used to implement a complete home media center that combines set-top box, CD, PVR and games console capabilities. Philips Digital Networks, also an affiliate of Philips Electronics, is the first business to announce that it will implement the pnx8500 Nexperia Home Entertainment Engine in its television set-top boxes. According to Jos Swillens, president of Digital Networks' set-top box product group: "The chip will play a key role in our strategy to transform the set-top box into a residential entertainment center, offering network operators and consumers alike an entirely new television viewing experience." Philips will incorporate the pnx8500 into the one million set-top boxes it is providing to AT&T Broadband, the largest broadband service provider in the U.S. In addition, the pnx8500 is at the heart of set-top boxes that Philips is providing to UPC, Europe's leading integrator of voice, video and data services. The flexibility of the Nexperia approach has allowed Philips to offer UPC a migration path in the introduction of new digital services, leading to the deployment of a new generation of set-top boxes that can be upgraded over time, based on software downloads. As another indication of industry support, Microsoft and Philips Consumer Electronics have recently announced a cooperation agreement to develop a range of Nexperia-based set-top boxes running the Microsoft TV software. With over 32 million transistors integrated into the chip, the pnx8500 is more complex than a Pentium-III processor. Priced at $48 in volumes of 100K units, it therefore offers unprecedented price/performance ratios for demanding interactive set-top box applications. "The pnx8500 addresses the needs of service providers to retain existing subscribers and attract new ones by offering exciting new service packages," said David Barringer, Director of Marketing for Philips Semiconductors' DVI business unit in Mountain View, California. "By combining the functionality that users currently expect to find in multiple devices, such as a PVR and Internet terminal, into one set-top box, service providers will be able to create significant new revenue streams. For example, the pnx8500's ability to support time-shift recording allows set-top boxes to collect and store programs that match an individual viewer's preferences, and also allows the commercials that appear in those programs to be equally tailored to each viewer. The pnx8500's Internet capabilities can then provide point-and-click access to Internet sites that facilitate on-line purchasing." The pnx8500 is a highly programmable silicon and software solution based on Philips Semiconductors' unique MIPS(TM)/TriMedia(TM) dual-processor Nexperia-DVP (Digital Video Platform) architecture --giving it the computing power to implement new subscriber services on top of the plethora of "middleware" programs (for example, OpenTV, Microsoft TV, Canal+ Technologies' MediaHighway, Liberate TV Navigator and MHP) that are emerging in the digital broadcast industry. This architecture also makes the pnx8500 powerful enough to support potential "killer-applications" such as interactive network gaming, and allows it to adapt to new streaming video standards such as MPEG-4 that will enable thousands of channels to be delivered "on-demand" to subscribers. The pnx8500 is one of the first system-on-chip solutions to emerge from Philips Semiconductors' Nexperia-DVP Digital Video Platform -- a scaleable platform architecture that addresses a wide range of digital video applications, employing the company's Sea-of-IP(TM) reuse methodology and standard hardware and software building blocks. Engineering samples of the pnx8500, software libraries and development systems are available now. About Philips Semiconductors Philips Semiconductors, which has annual revenues of approximately US$5 billion, designs and manufactures semiconductors and silicon systems platforms. Philips Semiconductors is spearheading the emerging field of systems on silicon solutions with the innovative Nexperia(TM) platform and VLSI Velocity(TM) tool set. The company's Sea-of-IP(TM) design methodology allows plug and play intellectual property blocks for easily customizable products. The company is a leader in communications, consumer, PC peripherals and automotive semiconductors, which are key applications for convergence in end-user products. Philips Semiconductors is headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and has operations throughout the world. For more information: www.semiconductors.com. SOURCE Philips Semiconductors /CONTACT: Paul Morrison, 408-474-5065, or paul.morrison@philips.com, or Tanja Laube, 49-40-23536320, or tanja.laube@philips.com, both of Philips Semiconductors; or Tad Bixby of Ketchum, 650-596-2210, or tad.bixby@ketchum.com, for Philips Semiconductors/ /Web site: semiconductors.com (PHG)

To: Stoctrash who wrote (50100)	10/7/2000 12:33:12 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Philips' new chip..................................... multichannel.com Philips Chip Unit Debuts Multiple-Service Silicon By MATT STUMP October 9, 2000 Philips Semiconductors said it developed a new, sub-$50 silicon chip that can power the many services that cable operators want to deliver through advanced digital set-tops. The "PNX 8500 Nexperia Home Entertainment Engine" combines media processing and CPU processing -- heretofore handled separately -- into a single device, said Mark Samuel, Nexperia marketing director at Philips. "This is a major breakthrough," he said. Cable operators would be able to offer a panoply of services -- interactive television, video-on-demand, MP3 downloads, streaming video, personal video recording, advanced electronic program guides, shopping, high-speed Internet access, gaming, video electronic-mail and IP telephony -- through the new chip, Philips said. Those consumer services are part of the next generation of specifications coming from companies like News Corp., Canal Plus S.A., America Online Inc. and AT&T Broadband, Samuel said. "Since they are integrating a media processor with the CPU, that's the direction the industry needs to go, because of all the new services we'll be able to offer," said AT&T Broadband vice president of technology Jim Wood. Said Samuel: "It meets that demand and preserves bandwidth for future capabilities." The chip contains two processors: a 150-megahertz MIPS RISC CU processor to run the operating system and control tasks, and Philips' 200-MHz TriMedia 200 processor for software-driven media processing. Other functions -- such as MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Expert Group) decoding; two-dimensional drawing; 3-D, game-quality graphics; and universal serial bus (USB) peripherals -- are part of the chip's hardware. "We've freed up 80 percent of the processing power," said Samuel, by integrating a good deal of functionality into the hardware base. This is a key element for operators who want the flexibility to deploy future services. "People are leaving 50 percent or more processing power for future upgrades." The strength of the product also means that operators or consumers won't have to switch out boxes every few years, he said, because the unused processing power can be used for future applications. The unutilized power could be harnessed for emerging audio standards like Sony's "ATRAC3" and Microsoft's "Windows Media," or for MPEG-4 video-streaming standards, Philips said. The company said the chip's MPEG-2 decoder can handle high-definition television (HDTV) MPEG-2 streams in all 18 ATSC formats and convert high-definition formats to standard definition. The chip also includes the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' "IEEE-1394" or "fire-wire" interface, which allows for 5C copy protection to distribute program material to other consumer digital-video devices. AT&T Broadband will use the Nexperia product in the Philips Digital Networks set-tops it agreed to purchase two months ago. Philips Semiconductor and Philips Digital are sister companies. "The chip will play a key role in our strategy to transform the set-top box into a residential entertainment center, offering network operators and consumers alike an entirely new television-viewing experience," said Philips Digital Networks president Jos Swillens. Wood said lower-scale versions of the chip are running in the Philips box deployed in the former MediaOne Group Inc. system in Jacksonville, Fla. "We've seen speeds of streaming media, MPEG-4, of 750 kilobits while the box is doing other things," Wood said. The new chip will allow consumers to look at more than one MPEG video stream at a time. For instance, a user would be able to simultaneously watch TV and participate in a videoconference. Samuel said the Nexperia chip set has enough processing power to do the decoding work for two boxes -- an important consideration, now that cable operators are deploying 1.2 to 1.4 digital set-tops per home. The chip sells for $48 in shipments above 100,000, Samuel said. Philips estimates that stacking the chip's components separately would cost operators between $100 and $150. It contains 32 million transistors and is more complex than Intel's Pentium III processor, Philips said. The PNX 8500 will work with the major operating systems and middleware being developed by OpenTV Inc., Microsoft Corp., Liberate Technologies and Canal Plus U.S. Technologies, Philips said. "PNX's layered software architecture routes all communication between a middleware program and the software that controls the chip or performs routine media processing tasks through a clearly defined applications programming interface," Philips said.