Very, very good MUCP article:
eetimes.com
bert
edit : full article:
Zilog angles to build Net-appliance chip portfolio
By Junko Yoshida
CAMPBELL, Calif. -- Betting big on the market potential of Internet-ready TV, Zilog Inc. has embarked on a shopping spree to multiply its chip solutions for embedded Internet appliances.
In the past three months, Zilog has entered strategic partnerships or licensing agreements with Hirotech Corp. (Tokyo), MSU Corp. (Central Milton Keynes, U.K.) and Telecruz Technology Inc. (Campbell, Calif.). Each partner will provide a different set of building blocks targeted at the Internet TV market. Through independent collaborations with the partners, Zilog hopes to equip conventional TVs for the Internet at different price points.
Zilog chairman Edgar Sack said the company is wasting no time in moving to capitalize on the fast-changing market. "It all happened very quickly, and we grabbed [technologies from] all three [companies]," he said.
The premise behind Zilog's new strategy is straightforward. The home-PC explosion is leveling off; while PCs may continue to generate a replacement market, Sack said, they are no longer attracting new home users. As a result, Zilog is looking to expand the company's core silicon market in consumer-entertainment systems.
"TV will move to a bit-mapped environment from today's character-based system, no question about that," Sack said. Connecting with the rest of the world via satellite, cable, phone, CD or DVD-ROM, next-generation TVs will display text, graphics and data at higher resolution, he said.
"Internet surfing is just the tip of the iceberg" of emerging TV applications, said Chuck Robbin, director of Zilog's efforts in the satellite, cable, consumer and peripherals areas.
Zilog's goal is to provide different levels of chips for various embedded Internet TV and set-top designs, rather than design a single chip that may or may not fit the needs of many different consumer boxes. Indeed,the agreements with Hirotech, MSU and Telecruz are intended to allow the creation of three chip families during the next six to 18 months.
The most basic solution is the Z905XX, a family of pixel-based on-screen display (OSD) chips that will be spun out of Zilog's exclusive licensing agreement with Hirotech, a Tokyo design house.
Due this summer, the family will let TV manufacturers offer descriptive icons on their TVs, rather than old-fashioned text-based menus, at low cost by eliminating the need for external memory. Zilog plans to leverage Hirotech's patented, real-time pixel graphics technology, which can create pictures without frame storage. Zilog will incorporate the technology into its own digital TV controller architecture using the C50 CPU, the company's proprietary 16-bit DSP.
Targeting mid- to high-end TV designs that require graphics, text and smooth cursor operation, the new family offers bit-mapped-display quality at a price between $5.50 and $6.
The alliance with MSU, on the other hand, will extend Zilog's traditional role as an application-specific standard IC supplier and make the company a provider of system-level silicon for low-cost Internet appliances. MSU designs, licenses and sells chip sets for OEMs of multimedia consumer and computer products. Zilog and MSU have agreed to jointly develop and manufacture chip sets based on MSU's Internet Service Processor (iSP) chip and targeted at low-cost Internet TV set-top appliances.
While Zilog's core business and main interest continues to lie in supplying low-cost chips for system vendors, the company will provide consumer OEMs with a reference design based on MSU's InternetBox. Though the company has no plans or interest in becoming a distributor for InternetBox, Zilog is ready to step up and help build InternetBoxes through two high-powered manufacturing companies based in the Far East, said Sack. "We will play an intermediary role" to get the market rolling, he said.
Among the MSU iSP's functional blocks are a video/memory controller, a compact disc read DMA, blitter coprocessor, 16-bit custom DSP processor originally designed by Acorn, and DSP 16-bit ROM and RAM. Under the agreement, Zilog is allowed to manufacture and sell MSU's iSP as a core or as a discrete product for its InternetBox.
A consumer OEM wishing to build the MSU-designed InternetBox could integrate Zilog's V.34 modem and front-panel control chip into an iSP, or obtain almost all of the other chips it needs to build MSU's InternetBox, with the exception of the 386 CPU. Zilog hopes to supply such key silicon as an infrared wireless keyboard controller, infrared remote control, and interface chips for a printer, card reader and Internet phone.
Using the iSP as a core, Zilog plans to develop the Z906XX family of chips priced between $7 and $7.50 and offering full bit-mapped 3-D-graphics capability for set-top and Internet TV applications.
InternetBox manufacturers based in Taiwan and China are already cranking out 500 to 1,000 boxes per day, according to Sack. InternetBox, priced around $200, is scheduled for rollout in the United States this month after the Consumer Electronics Show. It will be first offered by American Interactive Marketing, a distributor based in New Jersey. The MSU system, which is expected to compete with other Internet appliances such as WebTV, will provide interfaces from the start for a mouse and CD-ROM. These features aren't yet available on competitors' systems, said Robbin. |
