Components – Page 11 – Digital-Lifestyles

World’s First Combined Digital TV and Radio Chip

Frontier Silicon, fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for digital TV/radio consumer products have started shipping its Logie integrated circuit. The Logie chip is the world’s first single chip DVB-T/DAB integrated circuit, and will be first used in an as yet unnamed Goodmans set-top box.

Other than the Goodmans product, there aren’t any combined digital TV/radio units out there, and a chip like this will allow manufacturers to produce them easily and cheaply. If power consumption issues can be worked out, portable DVB-H/DAB devices in the near future could be a real possibility.

Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon, commented in a statement, “Our Logie device enables set top box manufacturers to produce low cost boxes with considerable consumer appeal, including the reception of 24 digital TV channels and 50 or more digital radio (DAB) channels that are all free. There is no other combination DVB-T/DAB chip currently available in the market that can do this.”

Frontier recently won the PricewaterhouseCoopers Hottest Technology Company of 2004 Award, and produce chips used in products from, amongst others, Grundig, Philips, Roberts and Sharp.

Frontier Silicon

Goodmans Digital

AMD outsells Intel-equiped Desktops claims analyst

Intel has had an enormously aggressive period where they have attempted to out Ghz their competition. We now learn that desktop computers fitted with their processors from the competitor, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) have outsold those equipped with Intel.

It is important to get this into perspective. The figures claimed by Current Analysis were only for the week ending April 24 and Current Analysis have only been studying this particular market since November last year. The figures were also just for desktop computers, not portables, where most of the market growth is. Intel currently hold 81 percent of that market.

The analyst, Toni Duboise from Current Analysis appears to not see the AMD-equipped desktop continuing in the same way, citing Intel’s new-this-quarter Grantsdale chipset to return them to dominance. Grantsdale will have faster memory (DDR2 -double data rate 2) and importantly an integrated wireless access point. We feel this is the killer feature, enabling the normal, non-technical user to easily setup their own home network, for file sharing and importantly media sharing.

Current Analysis

Read

Intel Announce New Mobile Multimedia Processor

Intel has announced a new processor for the mobile phone industry – the PXA27x, previously codenamed “Bulverde”.

With clock speeds from 312MHz up to 624MHz, the processor is geared towards high quality video playback for next generation mobile phones. This new chip can encode 30 frames per second at 320×240, or 15 fps at 640×480.

The new processor also includes the option of a new security subsystem, the Wireless Trusted Platform, allowing users to access their corporate networks via VPNs. The security system also enables sophisticated media DRM on phone. Content providers can specify exactly how music and movies are used on phones featuring the processor.

Intel has also adapted their SpeedStep technology for the new mobile processors, enabling phones to get more out of their batteries by underclocking the chip where appropriate to save power. Figures from Intel imply that the chip can use 50% less power than their previous offerings.

Factory door prices for the PXA27x are $32, should you require them in quantities of 10,000.

Intel’s product briefing

Recycle Your Computer

A report from the UN University recommends more effort is made to recycle computer hardware as every PC, from production to disposal, uses huge amounts of natural resources.

The UN report states that producing a PC system (base unit, monitor etc.) requires 240kg of fossil fuel, 22kg of other chemicals and 1.5 tonnes of water. This incredible figure then needs to be multiplied by 130 million, as that’s the number of PCs that roll out of factories every year.

BBC Breakfast picked up on the news and produced a rather confusing report based on it: they seemed to think that UK computer firms could take old motherboards and produce refurbished computers from them after a bit of recycling. Recycling electronic components is extremely difficult and produces large amounts of toxic materials, requiring specialist facilities which are often in developing countries.

So what can you do?

Since there is no real provision in many countries to collect and properly recycle PCs, reuse is often the easiest and most effective option.

Donate old PCs to charities or clubs. Even if your PC is getting on a bit it, can be still be used. Remember how fast it seemed when you first got it out of the box? Reinstalling the operating system and giving the hard drive a good clear out really makes a difference. Other operating systems like Linux can make good use of older PCs’ hardware.

Don’t dump your PC at a landfill – as we’ve said, the components contain highly toxic metals and chemicals. For this same reason, don’t burn it either – you’ll release poisons into the ground and atmosphere.

Only about 10% of electronic devices are recycled currently. To address this, the European Union has legislation coming into place in 2005 which will promote recycling by organising proper “take back” services and drop-off points for equipment – though expect the cost of a PC to go up by about US$50 as a result. Small price to pay, we say.

Computer Aid (UK, France and Spain) Digital-Lifestyles.info’s choice

Donate a PC (UK)

Metech PC Recycling (US)

Europe’s Recycling Marketplace

Disposable Computer Arrives

With the same memory capacity as the BBC Micro and based on Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology, researchers have developed a paper board computer with 32kb of memory and basic processing and communication capabilities.

The device has many applications in data collection and processing – self-tracking courier packages, passports, pharmaceutical dosing, interactive books … the list is endless. As it incorporates a high standard of encryption, transactions with the device can be secure and authenticated. Current projects for the Cypak computer include providing tamper-proof packaging for the Swedish Post Office and pharmaceutical monitoring with a Swedish university.

The computer is based on “printed” sensors and can be incorporated in a wide range of products, and is priced at about US$1.

Cypak

TechWeb on the computer

Phone-on-a-chip Coming Soon

Bill Krenik, who heads up research and development in Texas Instruments (TI) wireless terminals business unit has been revealing the companies intention to create an integrated chip that will hold all of the functionality of a current smartphone, on a single chip. TI plan to have it available by the end of 2004.

TI, the world’s largest maker of cell phone chips say the integrated chip would reduction power consumption by a half and free up large amounts of the valuable system board real estate for additional chips providing features Wi-Fi high-speed wireless networking and satellite location tracking to be added to phones.

TI is not alone in thinking along these lines. Samsung were speaking about this very idea last week. They prefer the term System-in-Package chip and plan to show it at the coming GSM World Congress Conference in Cannes. Their chip will include a 203MHz ARM-based processor with 256MB of NAND flash memory, 256MB of SDRAM and support for USB.

Philips and Samsung Announce Universal CE API

Consumer electronics (CE) companies, Philips and Samsung have today announced the Universal Home Application Programming Interface (UH-API). Aimed at simplifying the development of software, be that applications or middleware that uses their semiconductor-based systems, thus reducing the time to market for home consumer devices. This is a reaction to, and acceptance of, the need for increasingly complex software to operate and combine digital consumer electronics. Drafts of UH-API are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2004.

The UH-API consists of a set of software interfaces for configuring and controlling the audio and video-related components of a semiconductor platform targeting the consumer market, and it is complementary with the leading operating systems across the industry. It is designed for target devices including analog and digital televisions, Set Top Boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders, home servers and other consumer audio-video devices.

Leon Husson, executive vice president of Consumer Businesses, Philips Semiconductors said, “This is a fundamental change from developing standalone consumer electronics products that fit proprietary schemes to a universal choice of hardware systems that can support the multiple features of the diverse consumer electronic brands.”

Both companies have said they will “realign their internal resources” to develop UH-API-compliant semiconductor chipsets and solutions. They will also invite other CE companies to participate in enhancing and deploying the UH-API specification.

Philips plans to make their Nexperia Home semiconductors range UH-API compliant. Samsung will start by making its HD TV chipset compliant and plan to expand its coverage from there.

Philips Nexperia IC’s

Home HiFi Unit Enables Online Music Purchase

Pioneer Corp., Kenwood Corp, Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp. have came together at the start of the year to form Any Music Planning Inc.. Under this banner they co-developed a Linux-based music HiFi platform that enables home users to accesses and purchase music via networked services. Yesterday they showed working prototypes. Although co-developed – each of the four companies own a equal percentage of the development company – the units will be sold under their own brands.

Other devices such as the Onkyo Net-Tune NC-500, have had a similar form and functions – playing digitised music, delivered over a network connection and in the form of a traditional HiFi unit. Where this initiative differs is that the listener can buy the music via the device, without having to use their computer.

The new devices will initially pull content from online music service, LabelGate. It is thought that “OpenMG X”, Sony’s digital rights management and distribution technology will be used to protect the content.

The working versions will initially be released in Japanese, but “ultimately, our dream is to make the service a worldwide standard,” said Any Music CEO Fujio Noguchi.

Sharp’s audiovisual systems department head, Moriyuki Okada gave a stark comment – “Our industry is in crisis. We want to emerge from that by offering new business ideas.”

OpenMG

Onkyo Net-Tune NC-500

Emuzed supply PVR hardware for Microsoft Media Center OEMs

Following the announcement of Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 (MCE) , Emuzed, who supply video capture and encoding cards, have signed deals with a number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that are using MCE.

Their two products Maui-III PCI PVR and Bali-II USB PVR Beanbag have the ability to encode to MPEG 2 on-board from PAL or NTSC signals, write out the recorded content out to CD or DVD and support an optional FM tuner. The Bali-II connects via USB 1.1 or 2.0

Two deals that they’ve announced recently are the Samsung MagicStation Q Media Center PC, HP’s new 17-inch widescreen Media Center zd7000 notebook PC which uses the USB version and most recently, the ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100.

A relative new comer, they look like they are taking trade from the previous default supplier, Hauppauge, which is based in Europe.

Emuzed

HP zd7000 notebook

ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100

Hauppauge