Thanks, mmeggs. This is today's press release from the BRCM site. BTW, CNBC had a nice piece on BRCM with an interview of Nicholas. Like I mentioned in a previous post, Leadership + R&D will make us all rich <g>.
Broadcom Enables Studio-Quality Text, Graphics and Video for the TV
Broadcom Enters Market with Highly-Integrated, Cost-Effective Graphics Solution Optimized for TV Applications
Irvine, CA - November 9, 1998 - Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading developer of integrated circuits enabling high-speed broadband communications to the home and business, today introduced a highly integrated, advanced graphics chip that is specifically optimized for television applications. Targeted at next-generation, interactive set-top boxes, Broadcom's new 2-D / 3-D graphics accelerator will enable set-top manufacturers to cost-effectively build systems that can support studio-quality text, graphics and video on television displays. This new graphics technology provides the ability to simultaneously view high-quality Internet content and web sites, interactive electronic program guides, and multiple layered graphics and video windows using standard television monitors.
The latest addition to Broadcom's extensive set-top box integrated circuit portfolio, the Broadcom® BCM7014 Advanced TV Graphics System, represents the Company's first entry into the graphics set-top chip market. Broadcom currently is the leading provider of high-speed transmission technology for digital set-top boxes. The Company's long-term commitment is to integrate all of the major functions of an interactive, digital set-top box into a single-chip solution.
"This breakthrough technology will cost effectively allow consumers to view Internet content directly on their television with quality similar to their PC," said Dr. Henry Nicholas, Broadcom's President and CEO. "Additionally, our solution will allow viewers to watch television while they are surfing the Internet, checking email, monitoring additional television channels, or viewing on-screen programming guides."
Product Features
The BCM7014 Advanced TV Graphics System is an integrated, high-performance graphics chip specifically designed to reduce the cost of integrated graphics/video solutions for set-top boxes. It is the most highly integrated TV graphics solution available today. In addition to its breakthrough 2-D graphics controller and 3-D graphics engine, it includes an NTSC analog decoder with an integrated 10-bit analog-to-digital converter, adaptive comb filtering and time-base correction. The chip has an NTSC/PAL video encoder with MacrovisionTM, which has composite and S-video analog outputs. An audio pulse code modulation (PCM) engine has been integrated into the device for sample rate conversion, mixing of multiple audio streams and volume control. The BCM7014 includes a high-performance Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) memory controller for high CPU performance and substantial memory cost savings.
The 2-D graphics engine display controller in the device supports studio-quality text and smooth scrolling of graphics and text with minimum CPU and memory requirements. The display controller can simultaneously support an arbitrary number of layered graphics windows on the screen. Each graphics layer can have its own pixel format and can be blended together independently on a per surface and per pixel basis. This built-in 2-D graphics controller can also simultaneously display scaled and unscaled analog and digital video windows. Each video window can be scaled up or down by arbitrary dimensions at a very high quality.
The integrated 3-D graphics engine in the BCM7014 is fully programmable unlike conventional 3D accelerators, and it supports a wide variety of 3-D graphics and real-time imaging processing functions with minimum CPU and memory overhead. This 3-D graphics engine performs video warping, texture mapping, Gouraud polygon shading, image blending, scaling, and traditional blitting. These advanced graphics capabilities can support 3-D interactive video special effects, such as flips, peels, warps and rotations, as well as interactive video games.
Differing from other solutions on the market, Broadcom's BCM7014 is the first graphics chip to convert the aspect ratio of a computer-based square pixel images to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) R Bt.601B rectangular pixel aspect ratio of standard televisions, without the loss of quality of either the graphics or the video. This conversion capability allows web site and other graphics content to be properly displayed on a television monitor along with full-quality digital and analog video. Anti-flicker and anti-aliasing filters in the chip also improve the television display quality by filtering out artifacts typically seen when displaying text and graphics on an interlaced television display.
The BCM7014's unique silicon architecture also makes very efficient use of memory and memory bandwidth. A unified memory architecture (UMA) in the device serves as the memory controller for the CPU as well as for all the 2-D / 3-D graphics, filtering, audio effects, video scaling, and NTSC decoding. The UMA capability in the BCM7014 allows systems to make optimum use of low cost SDRAMs.
The BCM7014 is available today in sample quantities. It is priced at $21 in 100,000 quantities and is packaged in a 304-pin BGA.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading developer of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital data transmission to the home and within the business enterprise. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the Company has designed and developed integrated circuits for some of the most significant broadband communications markets, including the markets for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed networking products, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL). Broadcom is based in Irvine, California, and can be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at broadcom.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
This release may contain forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future events or results to differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom include, but are not limited to, the volume of product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders; the loss of a significant customer; the timing of customer qualification and industry interoperability certification of new products and the risk of non-qualification or non-certification; the rate of adoption by customers and end-users of new and emerging technologies in the high-speed data networking, cable set-top box, cable modem, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, and digital subscriber line (xDSL) markets; the rate of adoption and acceptance of new industry standards in the foregoing markets; the Company's ability to specify, develop, introduce and market new products and technologies on a timely basis; the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies from other vendors; fluctuations in manufacturing yields and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of products; uncertainties associated with international operations; the Company's ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities and at the compensation levels needed to implement its business and product plans; problems or delays in achieving higher levels of design integration and in migrating product designs to smaller geometry processes; intellectual property disputes; changes in product or customer mix; the quality of the Company's products; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a quarter; potential business disruptions and other difficulties resulting from "Year 2000" problems in computer-based systems used by the Company, its suppliers or customers; the effects on operations and management of facility relocations; general economic conditions and market conditions in the markets addressed by Broadcom; and the other factors discussed in the Company's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (Amendment No. 6) and Final Prospectus dated April 16, 1998, the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (Amendment No. 1) dated October 14, 1998, the Final Prospectus dated October 20, 1998, and the Company's quarterly filings on Form 10-Q. Broadcom disclaims any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by it or on its behalf.
Broadcom is a registered trademark of Broadcom Corporation.
Macrovision is a trademark of Macrovision Corporation.
|
