0114.1 Hot Topics

    PenguinRadio Teams with Live365

    CableLabs Releases OpenCable Software Specifications for

      Comment

    Sony Sets Standard for Realism with The Getaway

      PlayStation2 Game

 

0114.2 Story of the Issue

    The Smoke and Mirrors of Deregulation

    WAVE Comments - Assessment

 

0114.3   3D

    Digital Immersion Ships Merlin 3D

    3D Pipeline Announces TreeFX

 

0114.4 Semiconductor

    Forward Concept’s DSP Market Bulletin

 

0114.5 Displays

    LTPS Shortage Impact on WinCE

    ADT to Produce 1.2 M TFT-LCD Display Panels

    PC Giants in China Seek Taiwan's TFT-LCD Makers Through

      Strategic Alliances

    100 Percent Growth in TFT-LCD Panels

 

--------------------------------------

 

0114.1 Hot Topics

 

***PenguinRadio Teams with Live365

(March 7)

 

Live365, an Internet radio community, has announced a partnership with PenguinRadio to offer over 29,000 Live365 stations through PenguinRadio’s interface. Under the non-exclusive licensing agreement, all of Live365’s 29,000 stations will be accessible via PenguinRadio on multiple devices.

 

PenguinRadio has developed a stand-alone Internet radio appliance, powered by the PenguinRadio database, that allows streaming media feeds to be directed to a home stereo system, no pc needed. PenguinRadio is also utilizing voice-enabled phone access to its database of traditional and Internet-only radio station feeds. The PenguinRadio web portal has links to thousands of radio stations, and the database supports use by mobile phones that can play Internet audio format through phoneradio.com.

 

http://www.penguinradio.com

http://www.Live365.com

 

***CableLabs Releases OpenCable Software Specifications for Comment

(March 5)

 

Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs) has released for comment the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP), or middleware software, specification. This collection of specifications establishes a road map for companies from around the world to create applications for interactive services that operate seamlessly over the broadband cable network.

 

In addition, by adding software interfaces to the existing OpenCable hardware platform, OCAP provides consumer electronics manufacturers the ability to build and market set-top boxes or integrated television receivers directly to consumers. These devices enable the same services available on set-tops provided by the cable operator.

 

The specification has two components: an Execution Engine (EE), which will provide a programmable environment, and a Presentation Engine (PE), similar to a Web browser, which will provide support for creating and using the Web’s standardized markup and scripting languages, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and ECMAScript.

 

The PE and EE specifications consist of open, royalty-free application program interfaces for content. This will allow any vendor to develop a compliant middleware implementation that will work on any hardware operating system.

 

Sun Microsystems was the lead contributor on the EE, while Liberate and Microsoft served as the lead contributors on the PE. Canal Plus, OpenTV, and PowerTV were additional contributors to the specifications.

 

The OCAP specification has been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for consideration as an international standard. This means that when applications are written to this specification, they can be supported by cable systems throughout the world. The CableLabs OCAP effort has been coordinated with Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) developers and with the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), two other groups which are developing middleware platforms for digital services. CableLabs intends to continue working with these groups in order to eliminate issues of incompatibility among these software efforts.

 

Because many elements of OCAP are adapted from work that is nearing completion elsewhere, some companies have announced that first implementations of the middleware will be available by summer 2001. It is contemplated that these OCAP implementations will be deployed in consumer set-tops, digital televisions and other devices shortly thereafter.

 

http://www.cablelabs.com

http://www.cablemodem.com

http://www.cablenet.org

http://www.opencable.com

http://www.packetcable.com

 

***Sony Sets Standard for Realism with The Getaway PlayStation2 Game

 

This Christmas, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) plans to release The Getaway, a PlayStation2 action game that takes advantage of the graphics power of the PlayStation2 as well as live actors, motion-capture technology, and a 3D scanning system by Eyetronics. The Getaway's production resembles that of Guy Ritchie's cult film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Developers have created "a living, breathing London" in which players wander around more than 31 square miles of London recreated with digital photographs and 3D modeling and texture techniques.

 

Within this scenery, players have the option to be a former professional bank-robber who is pulled back into a life of crime to save his son from a mob boss, or an embittered police detective who has an old score to settle. Players will be able to interactively explore the city on foot or by car, entering and exiting buildings. The player can steal a car and get into a high-speed chase with police through the city. If anything is damaged during the chase, the game's evolving environmental structure will show that area cordoned off for repair the next time the player passes by.

 

Perhaps the most important aspect of The Getaway's realism is the characters themselves, whether in the starring role or just a bystander on the street. The character list is complete with pedestrians, drivers and work crews minding their own business as the main characters battle each other. The characters' faces and actions appear as in real life, complete with blinking, breathing and emotional expressions.

 

SCEE developers achieved that accuracy by digitally recreating real actors and their clothing. The Eyetronics ShapeSnatcher Suite 3.0 system allowed SCEE to digitally recreate the actors' faces, and real-time motion capture put the finishing touches on the characters' movements.

 

The first step in the character development process was to scan the live actors' faces and costumes using the Eyetronics system. ShapeSnatcher uses an etched slide containing a grid that is projected on an actor's face with a standard high-resolution slide projector. The grid lines are used to calculate the 3D structure of the head. A standard digital camera is used to photograph different angles of the actor's head.

 

SCEE developers then look at the images in relation to the calibration to ensure that there are no holes or distortions. Images are then stitched together in Eyetronics' ShapeMatcher program to complete the 3D model of the actor's face.

 

Character files are then transferred to Alias|Wavefront's Maya 3D animation software for final rendering. Actors' motions are captured with an Ascension motion tracker and brought into Kaydara Filmbox, a software program that integrates the motion data with the 3D characters for real-time display. Characters were completed in Maya and ready to be integrated into the motion-capture process and dropped into the game.

 

0114.2 Story of the Issue

 

***The Smoke and Mirrors of Deregulation

By Amanda Rogos

 

The goal of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was to introduce competition by deregulating the industry and allowing competition and market forces to balance the players/services offered. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was assigned the responsibility to implement and regulate all interstate and international communications by radio, television, satellite and cable which the Act regulated. Under the provisions of the Act, long distance companies would be allowed to provide local telephone service, Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) would enter the telephone/data market, and telephone companies would be able to provide cable and video services. February of this year, marked the fifth anniversary of the Act, which has been criticized in the past for easing ownership limits on telephone, cable and media companies and by deregulating cable TV rates. The effectiveness of the Act can best be seen from three different views, that of the government, new competitors and the consumer.

 

The Government View

 

The government view is congratulatory and filled with optimism. Congress and the FCC have commended the 1996 act for increasing competition and fostering the growth in Internet usage in the last several years. As far back as 1999, the FCC was praising its advances. In April of that year, Reed Hundt, a previous FCC Chairman, discussed how between 1994-1999, “the idea of competition and innovation and invention and revolution and entrepreneurship has been embraced instead of regulated.” According to Hundt, during this time, $4 billion dollars in new money was spent to put Internet in every classroom in the country – increasing the number of classrooms online to 54%. Eight million jobs were created in the information sector, two out of three of all the new jobs created in the United States.

 

Today the organization continues their cry for deregulation, predicting that it will continue to foster competition and thus bring consumers lower rates. The new FCC Chairman, Michael Powell recently was quoted as saying,

 

“Deregulation is…a critical ingredient to facilitating competition, not something to be handed out after there is a substantial number of players and competitors in the market.”

 

Powell has begun to shift the role of the FCC though, from previous Clinton appointed Chairmen Reed Hundt and William Kennard, by reducing the government’s role in the process and letting the deregulated industries settle matters themselves. In his first few weeks in office Powell has favored easing the Telecom act’s rules to allow the Bells to move into long distance more easily, has advocated lifting the 35% cap on the percentage of the national television households a single company could reach through the stations it owned and has called the digital divide the “Mercedes-divide - I’d like to have one, but I can’t afford it.”

 

Powell’s willingness to take a hands-off position even extends to the RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Companies)/CLEC struggle, which Powell sees as a sign that competition is working. CLECs have a different view, arguing that the RBOCs are using unfair tactics to keep them out of the market (more information below), but Powell has stated, according to the WSJ Interactive that,

 

“Regulation should focus on fostering innovation and preventing consumer harm, not protecting young telecommunications companies from their more powerful and established competitors.”

 

The Competitor’s View

 

According to the FCC, CLECs hold 6-8% of the US local telephone lines, compared with 4.4% at the end of 1999. This sounds encouraging, but many CLECs are failing financially and blaming the RBOCs uncooperative attitudes as the reason. NorthPoint has recently been delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange, and many other casualties are being reported. Companies that have recently declared Chapter 11, as listed in DSL Report’s Company deathwatch on February 13^th include Flashcom (Rhythms residential lines go to Earthlink. NorthPoint residential lines go to Telocity), Darwin Networks (filed in January after a large downsizing in December), Zyan and Digital Broadband Communications.

 

Other failures include HarvardNet, which gave up its DSL business last fall, ICG Communcations which declared Chapter 11, GST Telecommunications which also declared Chapter 11 and was then acquired by Time Warner Telecom and Jato Communications which laid off 650 workers at the end of 2000, and then completely shut down.

 

Virtually all the CLECs including AT&T’s Local Services have accused the RBOCs of discriminatory practices designed to affect their ability to compete – and succeeding. Michael Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AT&T was quoted as saying that the RBOCs’ control of the local loops will forever halt competition.

 

“As long as [the Bells] are allowed to control this vital choke point, any vision of a competitive local market will remain just that – a vision.”

 

An unnamed source that we spoke with had these comments,

 

“…There are four major ILECs that exist, and maybe its just the conspiratorial nature in me, but I can’t believe that they have not gotten together and agreed to be difficult with the rest of the market…at least informally.” (ILECS are incumbent local exchange carriers)

 

In WAVE #0107 in our article about COMNET Education, we commented on NorthPoint’s struggle for collocation. Boardwatch Magazine recently ran an article entitled, “The Bell Monopolies are Killing DSL, Broadband and Competition.” The New Networks Institute released a report in December 1999 detailing the cost to an ISP to buy Bell Atlantic ADSL, including the actual lines, hardware rental and bandwidth – which are sometimes set above retail rates. The article also alleges that Bell Atlantic.net, Bell Atlantics’ Internet company has begun selling services below cost to discourage CLEC and ISP resellers.

 

Recently, an article in BroadbandWeek heralded the success of IgLou, an ISP serving the Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Nashville metropolitan areas, that brought charges against BellSouth for providing preferential access and rates to its own ISP, BellSouth.net. After more than a year of legal battles, the Kentucky Public Service Commission found that BellSouth was guilty of the charges and ordered the RBOC to address the disparities.

 

According to Brock Henderson, Director of Marketing for IgLou, other ISPs and the public in general have cheered the company’s success, but BellSouth has been less enthusiastic and has not complied with the PSC’s (Public Service Commission) orders. In fact, BellSouth is challenging the PSC’s jurisdiction over the matter and is appealing their final decision. The PSC has agreed to review the appeal, although the traditional course of action would be for the matter to move into the jurisdiction of the courts.

 

Henderson adds that they do not have any CLEC competition in the area to purchase DSL from, and so are stuck with BellSouth’s rates. There are many other ISPs in the same position and many are being forced (or encouraged) to become CLECs in an effort to increase their bargaining position with ILECs. FISPA (The Federation of Internet Service Providers of the Americas, previously the Florida Internet Service Providers Association) quotes these reasons why an ISP should become a CLEC, on their Web site:

 

  State by state mandated 17 to 25% below-tariff wholesale rates on circuits and service for switch less reseller CLECs

  Greater discounts of 20-45% below-tariff wholesale rates on circuits and services for facility-based CLECs

  Mutual compensation (recip comp) for at least the next six months or so

  Availability of carrier class services unavailable at retail levels

  The ability to profit from the telecom services used by your existing customer base and community.

 

A related success story can be found at McLeodUSA, a facilities-based provider with former ILEC status. The company was incorporated as McLeod Telecommunications in 1991 and won regulatory approval for local and long distance service in Iowa and Illinois in 1993. In 1997 the company changed its name and began, with a series of mergers, to call itself a CLEC and market DSL services. Presently the company provides voice, data/Internet and hardware/equipment and on February 20^th reiterated their year-end revenue and EBITDA targets of $2.1 billion and $225 million respectively.

 

The Consumer View

 

This brings us to the third party in the telecommunications market – the consumer. Although the FCC and the Telecom Act advocate consumer protection, the tales of woe from DSL and Bell customers are endless. Determining service availability takes weeks, service rollouts take months, and then truck rolls are problematic, costly and incorrectly accomplished. The problems seem so large in fact, that Verizon was recently awarded a monetary fine, of up to $43 million as part of an annual review process completed by the NY Public Service Commission (NYPSC), for their lack of customer support (throughout all their service offerings). Verizon’s wholesale DSL business, which operates as a separate affiliate, is also being fined $723,000 as a result of service complaints from competitive providers needing Verizon to install lines. Problems with Verizon have become so bad in some areas that one consumer even registered the domain names BellAtlanticPathetic.com and VerizonPathetic.com to voice his annoyance online.

 

On February 9^th, Verizon actually closed down DSL line sales at 53 central offices (COs) affecting 35% of its 1,850 COs in 30 states. This will aversely affect their wholesale customers (CLECs and ISPs) but many customers are pleased with the shutdown due to a feeling that over crowded networks have exacerbated problems with their DSL service.

 

Many groups are also interested in consumer rights. The New Networks Institute recently published a Broadband Bill of Rights on their Web site that, “sets out statements of law and policy that [they] believe are crucial if customers (and competitors) are ever going to receive adequate DSL and Broadband services- without all the current hassles.”

 

On the Consumers Voice Web site one customer posted the following comment, to sum up their Ameritech service:

 

“If an airline was risking passenger lives by undertaking the same business practices as Ameritech, it is difficult to imagine that lawmakers and regulators would sit idly by and allow the company to continue operations with merely a fine and an admonition to ‘clean up its act.’”

 

Consumers Voice is an organization dedicated to working with elected/appointed officials within the government to ensure that communities across the country have a voice in consumer matters. Bob Johnson, Executive Director for Consumers Voice said he thinks that the consumers have become the big victims in the whole situation.

 

The Consumers Union’s press release, “Fifth Anniversary of Telecommunications Act Offers Consumers Little to Celebrate,” criticizes the FCC’s handling of telecom mergers, which have decreased the number of Bell monopolies from seven to four. In 1996 there were eight RBOCs. That number has since been reduced to four – Verizon, SBC, BellSouth and Qwest – through a series of mergers. Johnson claims that the Telecom Act promised consumers three things; lower prices, more innovative services and reliable services. Between this consolidation push and the fact that cable rates have risen nearly three times as fast as inflation, consumers in most areas are 0 for 3.

 

Johnson also believes that solutions will not be driven by the FCC or Congress (and actually could be harmed by them), but by individual state commissions. An Administrative Law Judge in Pennsylvania has started this process by ordering Verizon to structurally separate its wholesale and retail operations over the next year. New Jersey and Maryland have initiated similar processes within their states, but these actions are not a guaranteed success. For instance, on March 7^th, CLEC.com reported that Maryland legislator Joan Stern withdrawn the bills the two Maryland bills, one to force the structural separation of Verizon's wholesale and retail units, and another to set up a task force on competition, after it became apparent that neither would be approved by the House Environmental Matters Committee. Committee leaders have now formed a working group to study the local-telephone market and determine their role in the competitive process.

 

Market Statistics

 

We do know this. As of September 2000 there were over 3.8 million cable modem subscribers and at the end of December 2000 there were approximately 2.4 million DSL subscribers. With 55 million households owning a PC, these broadband numbers are small – but costs have decreased to a monthly average of $40 and subscribers will increase with time.

 

Also, beginning this month, residents of Lake County, Chicago, Illinois will have three local phone companies vying for their local telephone dollars. Ameritech, AT&T (over its cable lines) and a new competitor, TDS Metrocom will compete for the 400,000 lines in the residential area – which is certainly a positive effect of the Telecom Act.

 

***WAVE Comments - Assessment

 

We find ourselves again looking at the three players in this market – government, new competitors and the consumer. The new administration’s focus seems to be supporting commercial ventures – not consumers, new competitors are financially weak and destined to lose to the RBOCs, and consumers are very unhappy with their limited choices and technical DSL nightmares. The FCC has said that deregulation is great, but if it doesn’t result in competition, then consumer interest is threatened, which it certainly has been in the past few years.

 

Cable modems, DSL and satellite subscribership is growing, but consumers that have a choice between the three are few and far between – and lucky! The average consumer is using a 56k modem and only dreams of the high-speed connections they read about. Even Washington DC-based Greenberg Traurig telecom attorney, Rick Brecher, admits that the Act’s biggest accomplishment might be helping lawyers like him earn a living.

 

http://www.fcc.gov

http://www.consumersvoice.org

http://www.dslreports.com

http://www.consumersunion.org/telecom/lessondc201.htm

http://www.iglou.com

http://www.fispa.org

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandbill.htm

 

0114.3   3D

 

***Digital Immersion Ships Merlin 3D

(February 16)

 

Digital Immersion Software has announced the worldwide shipment of Merlin 3D, the company's Windows-based software solution that offers a photo-realistic rendering, animation, and modeling environment for designers, visual artists, and other digital content creators.

 

Merlin 3D Features

 Integration with legacy CAD tools and imports for Merlin VR, 3D Studio .3ds & .prj, trueSpace4 .cob, VRML 2 .wrl, Wavefront .obj, ACIS .sat & .sab, IGES .igs & .iges, STEP .stp & .step, AutoCAD R14 .dxf & .dwg, ProEngineer .slp, and Catia .model & .mod.

 

 Deformations using animated modifiers like bend, pull, twist, bulge, taper, spiral, shear, local scale, and uniform scale.

 

 Real time lights with editing or animating abilities for light color, strength, spotlight angles

 

 Performance - hardware acceleration can handle view ports up to 1920 x1200, can handle large models of over 200,000 polygons each, and textures up to 2048 x 2048 without a performance hit. Using common 3D cards, Merlin 3D is capable of handling scenes of more than 1,000,000 polygons, at acceptable speeds.

 

Merlin 3D uses Lightworks Pro 5.6 as its rendering engine, and includes a texture Library, hybrid radiosity, ray tracing, shaders and volumetric lighting with particle based scattering medium.

 

Merlin 3D has a suggested retail price of $595.

 

http://www.digital-immersion.com

http://www.merlin3d.com

 

***3D Pipeline Announces TreeFX

(March 7)

 

3D Pipeline has announced the latest addition to their line of SmartFX 3D tools. TreeFX is a real-time engine bundled with a realistic library of trees, foliage and ground cover for use in any 3D environment, including vis-sim and games. Hundreds of trees and bushes can be placed to create a virtual forest, or to enhance an urban setting.

 

One of the hindrances to making a realistic outdoor real-time simulation is the inability to represent accurate trees, brush, grass and leaves. The foliage in games and simulations has consistently either been an eyesore or a drain on CPU power, even in sophisticated applications. TreeFX solves this by combining fully 3-dimensional branches, leaves and grass with very simple geometry. The program can compute ground shadows, grass, and strewn leaves and can be adjusted for various seasons.

 

A downloadable demo of TreeFX is available at the 3D Pipeline website (Nvidia GeForce 2 Ultra graphics card required).

 

http://www.3dpipeline.com

 

0114.4 Semiconductor

 

***Forward Concept’s DSP Market Bulletin

(March 1)

 

In a recent report from Forward Concepts, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization estimated that worldwide programmable DSP chip shipments for 2000 were just over $6.1 billion. That represents a 40% growth over 1999 revenues of $4.4 billion. The entire monolithic integrated circuit industry was up by some 35%, and as DSP deployment becomes more widespread, the growth delta between the all ICs and DSPs becomes narrower. However, DSP shipments in 2000 passed those of the 8-bit microcontroller (MCU) market, the largest MCU market. Forward Concepts predicts that DSP shipments will eventually pass all of the MCU markets, collectively.

 

In their DSP Bulletin, Forward Concepts claims there is softening in the global economy for the first half of 2001 and chip inventory adjustments which will impact Q1 and Q2 chip shipments, as OEMs use up the chips that they over-ordered last year. They forecast a 5% revenue growth in monolithic IC shipments for 2001 and a lowered DSP revenue growth forecast of 10%. Interviews with chip executives resulted in a consensus that IC shipments will continue their decline through late Q2, with recovery beginning in early- to mid-Q3 of 2001. Forward Concepts predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% for DSP shipments through 2005, as indicated below:

 

DSP Chip Shipments

($millions, worldwide)

 

1999 - $4,387

2000 - $6,142

2001 - $6,756

2002 - $9,121

2003 - $11,857

2004 - $15,414

2005 - $20,038

 

2000-2005 CAGR of 26.7%

 

In contrast to the forecast for 2001, DSP shipments were good in 2000, at least until late in the fourth quarter. The company rankings remain the same for 2000, with TI still having a lead, but with a few points of its market share given up, mainly to "Other," followed by Analog Devices and Motorola. 

 

FC preliminary* 2000 programmable DSP market estimated rankings are:

 

Company, 1999 Mkt Share, 2000 Mkt Share, Y-Y Growth

 

TI, 47.9%, 44.0%, 29%

Lucent/Agere, 25.1%, *22.8%, *27%

Motorola, 11.5%, 13.2%, 61%

Analog Devices, 8.7%, 10.2%, 65%

Other, 6.8%, 9.8%, 100%

 

Total, 100.0%, 100.0%

 

WW DSP Ships

($millions) $4,387, $6,142, 40%

 

*Lucent/Agere's revenues have been estimated, for reasons explained below.

 

Wireless revenue constitutes TI's biggest market, where growth was up only about 30%, dragging down overall company growth. However, TI maintains a 55% share of DSP shipments to the cellular handset market. After a slow start in ADSL, TI's shipments to that market were up nearly 900%, and their sales to the digital still camera market were up some 400%. DSPs for Internet access and Internet audio were both up over 300%. The company's sales growth for the hard disk drive market was down and chips for the analog modem market continued their decline. TI saw its greatest revenue increase (well over 70% growth) in the "mass market" or catalog and sales through distribution.

 

Motorola's 61% increase in DSP shipments is attributable to internal shipments to its cellular handset division, but merchant-market DSP shipments for both wired and wireless infrastructure were up, at over 50%. Motorola DSPs continue to play well in the professional audio market, although it is only a single-digit percentage of their DSP revenues. The company is betting on 2001 design-ins for their StarCore-based DSPs for 2002 revenues.

 

Analog Devices (ADI) also had a good year, with both wired and wireless communications sales up.  Their market share in 1999, however, has been restated from earlier Forward Concept reports. ADI is the industry leader in DSP chip sales to the merchant (non-captive) ADSL market and the industry leader in universal (voice & modem) remote access server (RAS) modem banks based on DSP. The company's DSP division is benefiting from pairing with their communication division's Othello direct conversion radio chip (based on DSP technology, but not categorized as a programmable DSP chip). The pairing has led to high-volume GSM cellular handset sockets at Samsung and future ones in Siemens 2.5G handsets. ADI has announced the introduction of the "Frio" low-power DSP core (developed jointly with Intel) into its product line, and FC expects product announcements in Q2. Like TI, ADI experienced growth in their catalog and distribution markets, greater than 60% in 2000.

 

Lucent is spinning off its microelectronics division as a separate company, now named Agere Systems. Lucent microelectronics was the 1999 leader in DSP shipments for cellular infrastructure, and maintained its number-one ranking in 2000. Since the company is under a SEC gag until 25 days after their IPO, Forward Concepts can say little more about their CY 2000 performance. However, after the IPO, Agere is likely to find a bigger market for its chip products, since most telecommunications companies considered the parent company to be a direct competitor. Agere will likely emphasize the StarCore IP in ASIC implementations for high-volume customers and for selected catalog products, the latter being a new market for their DSP properties.

 

FC suspects that the high growth of “Other” is attributable to Japanese DSP vendors like NEC and Hitachi selling to Japanese cellular handset makers, though both TI and Agere enjoy good business in that market. Another possibility is that some chip houses like STMicroelectronics and LSI Logic are now reporting some of their chips based on DSP cores as "programmable" DSP chips rather than as ASICs or "microperipherals," as they have in the past.

 

Digital wireless continues to fuel the majority of DSP market growth, with Nokia continuing to be the top DSP chip consumer, followed by Motorola and Ericsson. However, markets in portable devices are coming on strong. Virtually every plug-in module for palmtop computers (PDAs) has a DSP chip in it. Those plug-in modules include MP3 players, GPS receivers, Bluetooth transceivers, and even cellular handset modules. So, there will likely be a convergence of the PDA and the cellular handset as handsets begin to add those same PDA capabilities. 

 

To address that new version of convergence, TI has introduced its OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform), which is basically an ARM RISC core on the same die as a C55x DSP core, with software support tools for the combo. The OMAP concept extends to coprocessor modules on the same die for Bluetooth, GPS, etc.  Motorola has joined in the basic concept by licensing an ARM RISC core to pair with the company's existing M*Core RISC and DSP core pairing on a chip.

 

Newcomer to the DSP wireless chip market, Intel, has introduced a similar concept (though no chips, yet) that they call PCA (Personal Internet Client Architecture). Forward Concepts expects that Intel will announce an ASIC implementation for wireless handsets based on the "Frio" DSP core jointly developed with ADI and their XScale RISC core with the StrongArm heritage. Palm has announced that it is porting its Palm OS to ARM, so, it appears that ARM cores (and their progeny) may have become the de facto platform for future PDA and multimedia functionality in future cellphones.

 

Internet Telephony has spawned many markets, not only for VoIP gateways, but also for client products like IP phones and Integrated Access Devices (IADs, or client gateways), all of which use DSP chips. At the gateway level, look for a number of DSP chips to be introduced which can handle many VoIP channels each. FC defines those chips as "Access Communications Processor" chips (ACPs), to differentiate them from traditional DSPs. Last year, PMC-Sierra purchased Malleable Semiconductor and Broadcom purchased Silicon Spice. Intel has just announced purchase of VxTel, and all three startups had announced ACPs before they were acquired. Analog Devices, Motorola, and TI have also announced ACP implementations using their own DSP cores, so the VoIP media gateway market is heating up.

 

Since host-based software modems have become practical with GHz-class Pentiums, analog modem chips remain a growth market primarily in the remote access server (RAS) market, where banks of modems are employed by Internet service providers (ISPs). Increasingly, those RAS modems are becoming "universal" ports which can handle voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as well as V.90/V.92, fax and ISDN.

 

The Internet Audio download market, led by MP3, reached a sell-through level of 4 million units in 2000, but the market is expanding well beyond portable players into MP3 jukeboxes, CD players and even digital cameras and cellphones. The digital still camera market reached 10 million units in 2000, and application-specific DSPs addressing this market are now being shipped by traditional DSP houses.

 

Although the markets for DSP continue to proliferate, from digital hearing aids to motor control, two things make DSP the semiconductor technology driver for this decade: the Internet and multimedia. Without DSP, there would be no access to the Internet, wired or wireless. And the Internet is becoming the vehicle for unified messaging of audio, video, fax, and data, which is made possible through DSP. Without DSP, streaming video and MP3-type audio would be impossible. But, through DSP, our connected future will be a richer and more rewarding experience. 

 

Forward Concepts is a consulting firm concerned with electronics market research and strategic product planning. The company's foundation is in microelectronics, computers, communications and multimedia and has market expertise in products based on digital signal processing (DSP) technology - including digital audio, digital wireless, global positioning systems (GPS), analog/cable modems, xDSL, IP Telephony (VoIP) and multimedia.

 

More information on the DSP Market Bulletin can be found at:

 

http://www.forwardconcepts.com

 

0114.5 Displays

 

***LTPS Shortage Impact on WinCE

 

Global LTPS (Low Temperature Poly Silicon) TFT-LCD panel shortage caused many Taiwanese companies' WinCE PDA production to be postponed. At the moment, there is limited number of companies in the LTPS business, mostly Japanese companies manufacturing small size LTPS to be applied to PDAs. Due to such inadequate supply and a high demand of PDA, there is a shortage of LTPS which has resulted in a production delay for all Taiwanese companies involved in WinCE related products such as PDA and IAs. These companies expect to resolve the delay in April or May, after the Japanese LTPS manufacturers reorganize production capacity.

 

***ADT to Produce 1.2 M TFT-LCD Display Panels

 

According to a Japanese market survey on TFT-LCD display, Acer Display Technology (ADT) produced 1.270 million units last year, or 4.2% of output worldwide, placing them in the number 8 spot in the world’s TFT-LCD market, ahead of Japan's ADI and Toshiba.

 

According to ADT's president H.B. Chen, close to 60% of the 1.27 million units of TFT-LCD display panels went to notebooks while the remaining 40% were used for 15-inch and 17-inch display panels. Chen said that this year goal is to double the output of last year - to ship 3 million units and fully utilize their factory in Lung Tan.

 

Last year, Samsung shipped 6.114 million units and controlled just over 20% of world market. Other local companies like Chi Mei, Unipac, Hannstar and three other local producers of large flat-panel displays are working hard this year to break into world’s market.

 

***PC Giants in China Seek Taiwan's TFT-LCD Makers Through Strategic Alliances

 

China is the largest manufacturing and consumer market for CRT monitors, but with the TFT-LCD flooding the market fast, it is expected that CRTs will disappear in three to five years. That's why PC's giants in China such as Legend, Great Wall, Beijing Founder and other large computer distributors are seeking strategic alliances with Taiwanese TFT LCD panel makers. The partnerships will cover only manufacturing operations, but the distributors and TFT LCD makers have plans to jointly develop LCMs (liquid crystal modules). Several of the distributors have already signed letters of intent with panel manufacturers.

 

***100 Percent Growth in TFT-LCD Panels

 

There are two types of monitor in the global market - cathode ray tube (CRT) and thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels. The CRT monitor is expected to increase roughly 6% while new-generation monitor TFT-LCD will achieve 100% growth.

 

Production estimates include Lite-On Technology producing 7 million units and Jean company, whose manufacturing plant is in Suzhou, China producing 4.2~4.8 million units. Another monitor manufacturer, Amtran Technology will ship 500,000 TFT-LCD monitors and 420,000 CRT monitors.