Single chip designs will radically change the look and cost of high definition TVs over the next two years, according to semiconductor company Toshiba.
According to Dr. Hans Eichel, general manager of the design and engineering centre at Toshiba Europe, the company has plans for a digital TV chip which integrates MPEG and
H.264 compression, demodulation and scaling functions in a single device.
“With this type of single chip design the digital TV will start to look very much like a PC,” said Eichel.
The target date for this chip will be 2009, said Eichel. The device will be based on the firm’s Seine processor-based high definition (HD) chip and will be fabbed on a 65nm process.
Eichel believes the television manufactures have been somewhat slow to integrate HD tuners into TV sets.
But he predicted that this would change and he said that a key move in Europe had been the French government’s decision to mandate the incorporation of HD tuners in TVs by December 2008.