Gennum, the Toronto video and data communications semiconductor firm, is going fabless, and has embarked on a project to bring HDMI (the high definition TV interface) to the consumer.
The company has already signed the agreement for selling its fab which will mark the end of in-house manufacturing for the company. Already 80 per cent of its products are out-sourced to foundries.
Asked about the effect on margins of moving 100 per cent to a fabless/foundry model, Gennum CEO, Franz Fink, pointed to the 70 per cent margins the company is currently achieving with only 20 per cent of its production in-house.
The compelling reason for the move to the fabless model was the impossibility of upgrading the fab to 90nm. The acquisition of Snowbush Microelectronics, last month, allows Gennum to leverage Snowbush's foundry relationships for 90nm and 65nm processes.
One of Gennum's moves is a mission to cost-reduce HDMI to fit it for consumer markets. "We're taking HDMI to the consumer," said Fink.
Fink believes that Toronto is going to lead the world in delivering high speed, high-definition, video transmission over low cost cabling.
"It's difficult to get full-rate HDMI over 300 metres on co-ax without distortion," said Fink, "it's difficult to do the right serialiser, de-serialiser, equaliser and clocking, it requires very specialised design know-how found only in Toronto, and some parts of California."
Fink said he has demonstrated HDMI on co-ax over 100 metres and has a project aimed at doing it over 10-20 metres which, he thinks, is the sweet-spot of a domestic market for the technology.
The main focus now, to get HDMI within reach of consumer pockets, is to pursue cost reduction, which will be achieved by using more aggressive CMOS processes.
The aim is to have prototypes in time for CES 2008 in January, with a product launch at CES 2009.
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