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To: Terrapin who wrote (2674)	12/5/1997 7:35:00 PM
From: Stewart Whitman	Respond to of 78594

John, I really don't have an opinion on CRUS. The chipset/reference design looks interesting and it targets a reasonable pricepoint. But, I can't really tell whether it's going to be a success without comparing it with everyone else's chipsets. What I meant, when I mentioned companies like LSI, was to try avoid companies that depend on the acceptance of "pre-packaged" design chips, and to look at companies that are able to partner with customers to supply larger ASIC designs (>1,000,000 gates). This is the logical next step after FPGAs and simpler ASICs. This means that ASIC engineers are going to be able to create their own chips that include a custom processor, RAM, Flash, and specialized peripherals all on one chip. Once an infrastructure is setup to do this easily, the process should really should save money in end products. The costs of developing the ASIC are NRE, and every dollar saved in hardware (over designs with separate process, RAM, etc.) can translate into $3 to $6 in consumer cost savings for a companies with reasonable margins. A fully-integrated ASIC design can save you $20-$50 in a design for a device like a set-top box. biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com Stew