Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J Fieb who wrote (36171)	9/23/1998 4:36:00 PM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Chip makers poised for takeoff of China's decoder market By Sunray Liu BEIJING - Chinese startups and overseas suppliers of digital compression chips are gearing up to do battle in China as the market for MPEG-2 decoders heats up. A taste of what's to come surfaced in mid-September when the U.S. chip maker Zoran Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.), a supporter of China's Super Video CD (SVCD) standard, announced a single-chip decoder. Zoran said its "SuperaAV" SVCD decoder chip is entering production. Zoran is the latest supplier to back the SVCD format in the race with the rival video CD format. As more IC makers back the SVCD spec, more cost-effective decoders are expected to become available to systems makers. And as more foreign suppliers eye the Chinese decoder market, local suppliers of MPEG decoders are expected to cut their profit margins. The China IC Design Center, a state-run fabless design house here, is expected to launch its MPEG-2 decoder soon. SVCD and CVD aren't the only markets for compression technology. The fast-growing Chinese PC market, which is expected to account for 4.5 million new machines this year, will also give the decoder market a boost as multimedia and Internet applications grow. Along with DVD-ROMs and graphics accelerator cards on PCs, software-based DVD, digital cameras and video conferencing will also drive the market for JPEG and MPEG chips, industry watchers said. Other future drivers of the Chinese decoder market are cores. The Chinese government is spending $1.2 billion to establish a foundry in Shanghai called "Project 909," or China Huahong Microelectronics Ltd., to spur the growth of more domestic fabless design houses. The government has also invested more than $200 million in eight companies that will establish their own IC design facilities to support Huahong's foundry business. One company founded on Aug. 18, Beijing Huahong IC Design Ltd., will focus on chip sets for PCs, memory, DVD decoder, smart-card, DSP and other emerging applications. In order to shorten development cycles, and to ease intellectual-property concerns, some of the new companies are expected to buy cores from overseas partners. Either way, cores and licensing deals are expected to be thriving businesses as the decoder market takes off. With all of the attention focused on the race between CVD and SVCD, some experts here are beginning to worry that confused customers will balk at buying new video products until standards issues are resolved. Most Chinese consumers bought their VCD players within the last 18 months. Many consumers are expected to resist replacing their relatively new players so soon. Still, pressure from suppliers of new and cheaper DVD players may push buyers back into stores sooner than expected. IC suppliers like LSI Logic have launched their own low-priced DVD solution here in recent months, and prices for DVD players are dropping to $250. A key factor in the market's future growth is the number of DVD titles available. SVCD and CVD OEMs hope that as many as 500 films will be available for DVD players by year's end. They could be played back on both SVCD and CVD players. But unresolved copy-protection disputes have slowed DVD shipments here and around the world. eet.com