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Intel To Produce Cheap LCoS Chips

Posted by timothy on from the thinner-is-better dept.

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 ..."

24 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Google Link by pegr · · Score: 5, Informative

    Obligatory reg-free Google link here.

    1. Re:Google Link by akaina · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Story is "By JOHN MARKOFF" ???
      The same dude that demonized Mitnick to keep his paycheck?

      This guy is still working? What a jerkoff. He was probably paid by Intel to write that story.

      more detail here:
      http://www.simson.net/clips/96.IU.MitnickMa rkoff.h tml

      --
      Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
  2. "TrustedTV(tm) by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    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,
    1. Re:"TrustedTV(tm) by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I expect that in the future video cameras will detect watermarked images and refuse to record them.

    2. Re:"TrustedTV(tm) by leifm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, this whining about MS and DRM is getting old. MS sees an opportunity with DRM, and they are taking it, and I don't blame them as it could be quite lucrative. But in order for DRM to work, at least as far as DRM for music/movies, comsumers have to accept it. So if the terms of the DRM MS uses for whatever aren't acceptable to the general public it will fail, doesn't matter what MS does. I think Apple's DRM is fair, so I buy from iTMS, and others must feel the same way. MS DRM will work the same way, if people feel it's fair they'll buy into it, if not it'll die.

      If IntelTV has some kind of hardware DRM that won't let you TiVo or whatever, then don't buy one, and if enough people feel the same way and avoid the technology MS/Intel/whoever will have to adjust. You don't see DivX players or media in Circuit City anymore do you?

      --

      "Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
  3. Article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  4. You can always put it off ... by El+Cubano · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:You can always put it off ... by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if you keep putting it off, you'll never buy anything.

      You say that like it's a bad thing.

  5. Forecasting. by saintlupus · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  6. Oh really? by iamdrscience · · Score: 5, Funny
    Quoth the article:
    The Intel Corporation is planning to do to digital television what it has already done to computing.
    They're going to bully out competition and make ethically questionable deals with other companies (cable, movie and videogame most likely) to maintain their market dominance?
  7. What about the Light Bulb? by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:What about the Light Bulb? by trailerparkcassanova · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, and those damn cars will never take off either if you have to replace the tires every 3-5 years at $300 a pop.

    2. Re:What about the Light Bulb? by djbentle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From the article: "The true market test only started this summer," he said. "Rear-projection D.L.P. systems are flying off the shelf."

      If it hasn't slowed down DLP, it probably won't slow this down either. Besides when you pay the $200 to replace the bulb in 5 years, your DLP will look brand new, exactly as it did the day you bought it. Try that with a five year old CRT rear projection set.

      David

  8. Moore's law for TVs??? by Beek · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are we going to have to upgrade our TVs as often as we upgrade computers?

  9. Cheap panels by presearch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."

  10. AAAAAAAARGH by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 4, Funny
    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.

    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?
    1. Re:AAAAAAAARGH by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 4, Funny

      What are they going to do: make televisions cost half as much and go twice as fast after 18 months?

      No, even better. Half as much and twice as BIG after 18 months. In 20 years we should all have drive-in theaters in our back yards. :)

  11. Re:waiting, yay. by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  12. Re:Oops, by The_K4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I stand in front of it and say "Engage" will the whole house move?

  13. In other news: by holysin · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  14. Intel... by DaneelGiskard · · Score: 5, Funny

    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? ;-)

  15. is LCoS for you by HogGeek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read this to find out...

  16. Moore's second Law by Iowaguy · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  17. Content by raider_red · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.