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Intel To Produce Cheap LCoS Chips
SeattleGameboy writes "NY Times has an article about Intel's plan to produce low-cost liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) chips. This could result in high-resolution 7"-thick rear-projection TV costing around $1000 by next Christmas (not to mention cheap projectors). I guess I can put off buying a new TV for another year ..."
Obligatory reg-free Google link here.
Such a powerful marketing and technology combination could blend easily with Microsoft's media center software, which is aimed at using personal computing technology as the heart of home entertainment centers.
That concerns me. Microsoft makes no bones about their "Trusted-this" and "DRM-that" direction. Considering their relationship with Intel I don't doubt that we'll see some sort of DRM crud built right into the TV to "protect consumers from themselves".
Trolling is a art,
December 17, 2003
New Intel Chip for Digital TV Could Remake the Market
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 16 - The Intel Corporation is planning to do to digital television what it has already done to computing.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which opens on Jan. 8, Intel is expected to disclose the development of a class of advanced semiconductors that technologists and analysts say will improve the quality of large-screen digital televisions and substantially lower their price, according to industry executives close to the company.
Intel's ability to integrate display, television receiver and computer electronics on a single piece of silicon is likely to open new markets for a class of products - including plasma, projection and L.C.D. TV's - that now sell for $3,000 to $10,000.
Intel, as well as other large chip manufacturers, should be able to expand the benefits of Moore's Law, named for Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel, which accurately predicted decades ago that computer chips would continue to double in capacity roughly every 18 months, while their price would continue to fall.
"I think this brings Moore's Law to digital television," said Richard Doherty, a consumer electronics industry analyst who is president of Envisioneering, a consulting firm based on Long Island. He predicted that the low-cost display technology, which can be incorporated into the traditional rear-projection television sets, could lead to lightweight 50-inch screens only 7 inches thick for about $1,000, perhaps as early as the 2004 holiday season.
Intel's expected decision to enter the television market is another powerful indicator of the computer industry's assault on the consumer electronics industry.
Both Gateway and Dell are already selling large-screen digital TV's made for them in Asia, and Hewlett-Packard has indicated it will also enter the market. Such a powerful marketing and technology combination could blend easily with Microsoft's media center software, which is aimed at using personal computing technology as the heart of home entertainment centers.
The Intel announcement, which is expected to be made at the show by Paul S. Otellini, the company's president and chief operating officer, would come just as high-definition digital television is beginning to take off in the United States.
A spokesman for Intel said the company would not comment on Mr. Otellini's presentation to the consumer electronics show.
This year, the Consumer Electronics Association, the trade group for the industry, said it expected revenue from digital television sets to surpass revenue from conventional analog sets for the first time. In June, sales of digital sets were running 110 percent ahead of sales in the month a year earlier.
The technology Intel has been exploring is known as liquid crystal on silicon. It is one of a number of competing technologies, including a novel approach pioneered by Texas Instruments called digital light processors, or D.L.P.
The Texas Instruments approach involves a silicon chip that has hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors that can tilt to reflect light. So far, it has been limited to relatively expensive digital TV's.
By contrast, the technology used by Intel employs vast arrays of tiny electronic shutters that can alter the amount of reflected light, an approach that may allow companies to make big-screen TV sets using rear-projection technology that matches or exceeds the quality of flat-panel TV's at a much lower cost than plasma and conventional L.C.D.
Although Intel is not expected to enter the market for digital televisions for at least a year, Philips Electronics, the Dutch manufacturer, and several American start-up companies have already begun offering liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS, components and televisions.
"LCoS had a Phase 1 in the mid-1990's," said Sandeep Gupta, chief executive of the MicroDisplay Corporation, a chip maker in San Pablo, Calif., that ha
As long as they can do everything the HP MP3130 can do, I'll be happy.
brightness: 1800 peak ANSI lumens
display resolution: 1024 x 768 True XGA
colors: 16.7 million
light source: 180-watt compact P-VIP projector bulb
optics
lens: Non-telecentric
zoom capability: Digital and optical
projection distance: Approximately 3.3 to 29.4 ft
mobility
weight: 3.8 lb
dimensions: (w x d x h) 9 x 7.8 x 2.9 in
connectivity
video: Built-in full-screen NTSC/PAL/SECAM/HDTV video capability with S-video inputs (from DVD, Camcorder or VCR), HDTV (480p, 480i, 720p, 1080i, composite and component video
computer connectivity: XGA, SVGA, VGA, SXGA, SXGA+, Mac Lc13", Mac II 13", Mac 16", Mac 19", Mac, Mac G4, iMac DV
I guess I can put off buying a new TV for another year ...
You can always put it off for another year. Eventually you just have to take the plunge and buy it, realizing that you will kick yourself in 6 months when the same product is available for 25 - 50% less. But if you keep putting it off, you'll never buy anything.
I guess I can put off buying a new TV for another year ...
Yeah, that's what I said when I read that HDTV was "right around the corner." In _Commodore Magazine_. In 1988.
Long fucking corner, that's for sure.
--saint
With current DLP projection (front and rear) systems, there is a relatively expensive light bulb to be replaced every 3-5 years at around $200 a pop. If this is the case with the LCOS technology as well, I don't think it will fare as well as predicted. Time will tell.
Are we going to have to upgrade our TVs as often as we upgrade computers?
Will there be $1000 panels or $3000 panels with a much higher profit margin?
Then again, there might be a new, huge mass market for large panels...
"Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously.
Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover,
so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard."
Can we please, please, PLEASE stop mentioning Moore's Law in every single freaking article about Intel?
What are they going to do: make televisions cost half as much and go twice as fast after 18 months?
Yes but there's a difference. Broadband over power lines is technically unfeasible because of the ridiculous amount of radio interference generated. LCOS screens are already available. You are correct in another way, we have to wait and see if the price really drops or if they just enjoy a higher profit margin.
If I stand in front of it and say "Engage" will the whole house move?
Isn't the HP MP3130 more than twice as expensive
as the ~$1000 units based on this technology predicted by Doherty?
"several American start-up companies have already begun offering liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS, components and televisions."
Toshiba has had an LCoS TV out for quite awhile now. I believe Mitsubishi also has one out. They are super expensive though. Native 1080p resolution and really thin though.
<obscene gesture>I got your 7 inch thick rear projection right here</obscene gesture>
DLP is nice, but a main issue with DLP is that you have to replace the bulbs every 3-4 years. Currently, bulbs for DLP units range anywhere from $300-600, which is no small investment. Of course, DLP is also a projection format, so the viewing angle is not as wide, and from what ones I've seen at the store, the blacks aren't quite as dark as the plasmas or traditional CRTs.
Does the LCoS technology address these issues of screen burn in, viewing angle, accurate colors & brightness, and bulb replacement?
AMD has announced it will be producing even lower cost chips that while rated for lower resolution, achieve higher resolution, but only when used with much larger cooling solutions.
The Intel Corporation is planning to do to digital television what it has already done to computing
;-)
Get 3.999998456 digital television sets for the price of 2.00000000 + 2.000000000?
Either that or you'll wind up getting married to the thing.
http://actionPlant.com
I hope Intel does the right thing and make this chip availible to experimenters as TI refuses to make their reflective mirror chip availible to experimenters. That way you could make your own displays/multiple screen displays. It's too bad companies like TI refuse to sell their (refflective chips) to the exprimenter/small product developers, we have reached an age where nobody works on their own cars anymore or people don't build as much things anymore (we just buy stuff)...I know that it's more expensive to build stuff, but the whole computer revolution was started by people working in their basement/garages developing cool stuff. The high-tech culture we live in is determined to a great extent by the ability of the people around you to be able to develop new products, not just big companies (look at linux). I hope that someday cheap fpga's come around and eventually real cheap nanotech allows everybody the ability to make something new.
I am putting of purchasing a new HDTV because I don't understand what the impact of the broadcast flag will be TVs and related products. I will be very upset if my expensive digital TV stops working 2005.
Read this to find out...
Moore's Second Law: The number of mentions of Moore's first law on slashdot will double every 18 months.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Now, can someone please make a television that shows something worth watching?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.