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Analog & Digital Chips On The Same Silicon

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the put-'em-together dept.

jukal writes "Forbes.com writes: "Intel Corp. Monday announced plans to put some functions of analog and digital chips onto the same piece of silicon, its latest push into the communications semiconductor industry.", "which will be available early in 2004, could lead to a single-chip hand-held device that offers cellular phone, wireless-data-network and other connection services.", so, I quess this will be a competitor to the Texas Instruments' OMAP chip?"

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Not new, it's called Mixed signal. by msgmonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    A large section of embedded IC's have digital & analog on one chip. This has been done for years, just beacuse Intel are now doing it does n't make it news.

    1. Re:Not new, it's called Mixed signal. by jaoswald · · Score: 5, Informative

      You are completely right about mixed signal chips being a reality for a long time: you don't need to look any further than a video card in your computer to see that. Intel mentions "silicon radio" as if it is a new idea, but a company already exists called Cambridge Silicon Radio, so you can see it isn't just Intel in this business.

      I have a feeling that something important is being left out of this article. If you look at the original press release you see that it is a total mishmash of different Intel developments. The poor journalist was stuck trying to find a lead in this story (other than "Intel has bunches o' innovation") and zeroed in on the part that mentioned Moore's law, which he had heard before.

      The most interesting part that I see is the tunable laser using silicon photonics. Si has an indirect band-gap, which makes it not very good for making lasers and optical devices. That could be big news.