|
Digital Signal Processing
|
Single Chip Makes Set-top Boxes Smart
DALLAS (Nov. 4, 1996) -- A new computer chip from Texas Instruments
(TI) may allow the set-top box atop a television to become much,
much more than just a channel changer. In fact, by using TIs
latest TMS320 digital signal processor (DSP) chip, "smart"
set-top boxes may offer Internet Web-browsing, the ability to
display multiple information windows on the TV screen, new services
such as home-shopping, and provide improved program guides to
the hundreds of available channels.
The TI DSP provides more power in a single chip than is available today in systems using up to seven chips. This power and performance increase makes it possible for set-top box manufacturers to incorporate a wide range of functions that will allow televisions to become more interactive and useful as communications tools. For example, using this new DSP, manufacturers will now be able to divide the screen into multiple viewing areas so consumers can track news via the Internet and check their programming guides while watching a feature movie or sporting event. "The development of new classes of digital entertainment products that combine features of digital satellite TV, digital cable TV, and digital cameras is being made possible by TI DSP solutions like the one we are announcing today," said Rich Templeton, president of Texas Instruments Semiconductor Group. "Consumers will shortly be seeing affordable, interactive and more useful home entertainment products based upon this new chip." The TI DSP provides three key benefits to set-top manufacturers: lower cost, more power and computer-like graphics. Computer-like graphics capability is important for World Wide Web-browsing and improving the on-screen guide to the television programming. Delivering more than just better quality pictures requires a set-top box that can perform computing functions on its own rather than simply changing channels. Initial implementations of these full-featured boxes used expensive workstations. Subsequent "smart" set-tops, which would integrate expensive computer microprocessors, have been proposed. TI's DSP is the first chip to provide the performance necessary to create a "smart" set-top at a price the consumer can afford."TI's newest DSP certainly creates significant opportunities for the digital set-top box industry." said Gerry Kaufhold senior analyst at In-Stat, a leading market research firm. "This chip provides the critical advance in technology needed to make digital set-top boxes both inexpensive and interactive. The addition of Web-browser capability to the set-top box will accelerate the industry's growth by combining the information value of the Internet with the entertainment value of digital television." "Surfing through hundreds of TV channels, home shopping, home banking and other personalized services will require a simple system," said Randy Ostler, marketing manager of TI's digital compression products. "The dramatic growth of the World Wide Web demonstrates how important simplicity is to consumer acceptance. Before the introduction of Web-browsers, the Internet was a comparatively lonely place. Easy-to-use systems will play a similar key role in keeping the set-top simple as the number of services grows and becomes increasingly complex." DSPs are high-speed, math-intensive, programmable integrated circuits, or chips, that are revolutionizing electronics in the '90s, much as the microprocessor did computers in the '80s. DSPs can add and multiply tens of millions of complex formulas per second. Digital signal processing is the technology at the heart of the digital revolution and is found in such products and applications as digital cellular phones, hard disk drives, modems and personal computer multimedia. Texas Instruments is the world's leading provider of digital signal processing solutions, with a 44 percent market share in DSP, according to industry analyst Will Strauss of the leading market research firm Forward Concepts.
|