Toronto is going to give the world high speed, high-definition, video transmission over low cost cabling, according to Franz Fink, the CEO of Toronto-based fabless semiconductor company, Gennum.
“It’s difficult to get full-rate HDMI over 300 metres on co-ax without distortion”, says Fink, “it’s difficult to do the right serialiser, de-serialiser, equalizer and clocking, it requires very specialized design know-how found only in Toronto, and some parts of California.”
Fink says he has demo-ed HDMI on co-ax over 100 metres and has a project aimed at doing it over 10-20 metres, which e thinks is the sweet-spot of a domestic market for the technology.
The main focus now is 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.