EET-i Top of the News

Week of August 28, 1995

August 31, 1995

Philips connects to Net via CD-i player

Motorola deals to cut small-IC size by 15X

Cray selloff a boon for M/A Com, Quantum

Siemens developing 64 Mbit 'record-on-silicon' ICs as cheap ROM

SSI ups read-channel ante, auguring "faster" disk drives
What's new(s) at EE Times-interactive

August 30, 1995

IEEE in uproar over re-org; another plan proposed

Oren equalizer IC goes ghost-busting

RF argument: put it on a chip or in software?

Frost & Sullivan forecasts boom in warfare systems

Zeitnet preparing ATM software tools

Lattice faces capacity crunch

A ugust 29, 1995

ADI, Aware roll ADSL chip set

Software searches out pc-board 'opens'

HP creates RF simulator

Backplanes eye serial storage

Hardware, software to fly at embedded show

Cabletron retunes Spectrum

Diamond mines Ark controller

August 28, 1995

Mobile and multimedia comm mu scle into Embedded Systems Conference

Glut of AM-LCDs triggers price war

IBM to describe silicon circuits in the multi-GHz region

Digital video disk rivals seek to merge standards

Startups prep 3-D rendering chips for PCs

Thomson moves on digital TV in Europe

New architecture rolls from Cisco

Other news sources on Techweb:

• Interactive Age
• Information Week
• Electronic Buyer's News

Philips connects to Net via CD-i player

By Junko Yoshida

BERLIN -- With one of its older technologies serving as a go-between, Philips Electronics (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) has become the first company to marry television with the Internet.

Using a CD-interactive (CD-i) player, a technology developed at Philips in the '80s, with a built-in 14.4-modem connection, casual TV viewers can now browse the World Wide Web, explore newsgroups and send and receive e-mail on a TV rather than on a personal computer's VGA monitor, said John Hawkins, executive vice president at Philips Media.

Through CD-Online, Philips Media's new wholly owned subsidiary based in London, Philips will seek a toeho ld in the on-line service business as well.

Starting in October, CD-Online will be an Internet gateway provider in Europe, competing against America Online and CompuServe. The company will offer new hybrid interactive services that connect CD-i discs for off-line information with on-line communication functions to host computers.

A similar product is also planned for the U.S. market as early as 1996, Hawkins said, but it's most likely to be offered "on a new, upgraded architecture." Declining further details, Hawkins said that Philips is "looking at several upgrade paths for CD-i, including plans to incorporate the higher capacity and MPEG-2 possibilities of the MultiMedia CD (MMCD) proposal in future CD-i products."

Motorola deals to cut small-IC size by 15X

By Terry Costlow

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Motorola Inc. has set out to shrink syst em size, focusing on low-lead-count parts pervasive in communication products. The company has just signed a pact with ChipScale Inc. to gain a packaging technique that slashes the size of parts with fewer than 100 leads by a factor of 15.

Motorola plans to use the wafer-scale technique, called Micro SMT, with discrete parts such as diodes and transistors. Devices with between three and 10 leads will be first at bat.

"These parts are one-fifteenth the size of a conventional package, and they're one-third the thickness," said Jim Fogle, program manager for new product development at Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector (Phoenix). "The small size means parasitics will be less, so for some devices there will be a performance enhancement."

With Micro SMT, leads are built onto the devices while the chips are still on wafers. The leads are plated-silicon posts built on the periphery and attached with thin gold beams. An encapsulant is placed on top, with a cover plate added to help dissipate heat. The r esulting package is only fractionally larger and thicker than the die itself.

Cray selloff a boon for M/A Com, Quantum

By Loring Wirbel

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- AMP Inc. subsidiary M/A Com Inc. hopes to open a gallium-arsenide fab for transmit/receive switches based on an IC line acquired this week in the bankruptcy proceedings of Cray Computer Corp.

Also in the proceedings, Quantum Corp., which took over much of Digital Equipment Corp.'s disk-drive business here, acquired leases to another Cray facility. Quantum said it would devote the space to mass-storage expansion, even though the company plans to lay off many Colorado workers at year's end.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Charles Matheson Tuesday approved the jointly made bid of M/A Com and Quantum, and final approval of the deal was expected late today or tomorrow. Cray would get $8.79 mi llion over two years to pay creditors, who are owed more than $18 million.

Siemens developing 64 Mbit 'record-on-silicon' ICs as cheap ROM

By Peter Clarke

MUNICH, Germany -- Siemens's semiconductor division is developing a non-volatile semiconductor-memory technology that the company claims could halve the cost of conventional ROM and push into markets for non-semiconductor storage, such as compact disks and photographic film.

The devices, called Record-On-Silicon (ROS), will be introduced at the 64-Mbit density in 1997 and will be embedded into credit-card- or half-credit-card-sized plastic cards. For higher densities, up to four die could be included in one card, and production of 256-Mbit ROS chips is planned by 1999.

As part of its declared push into multimedia applications, Siemens is betting on ROS as a means of delivering softwa re, games, music, street maps, travel guides and digital photography.

Multiple cards will plug into playing units that Siemens said could be small enough to use as alternatives or additions to portable music players, mobile phones, personal organizers, in-car information and entertainment systems and notebook computers.

SSI ups read-channel ante, auguring "faster" disk drives

By Terry Costlow

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Silicon Systems Inc. (SSI) has pushed read-channel chip speeds to 200 MHz. The achievement ups the ante in a burgeoning market as partial-response, maximum-likelihood (PRML) ICs rapidly replace the peak-detect versions that have been used in disk drives since the 1960s.

When the SSI chip is introduced at the DiskCon convention here next week, it will mark a substantial speed improvement over the 80- to 90-Mbit/second chips used last year and the 148-Mbit/s ICs unveiled earlier this year. That's a rapid speed ramp even by the standards of the disk-drive industry, which has been increasing drive capacity at a minimum of 60 percent per year.

"The fundamental reason is the technique used for the PR-4 coding," said Dave Gruetter, read-channel planning and development manager at SSI. "A PRML channel running at 160 Mbits/s has an internal clock frequency of 180 MHz for a PR-4 channel. The same speed for a peak-detect channel would require a chip with a 240-MHz clock speed."

PRML read channels have been moving into the mainstream over the past year, providing both higher bit capacities and faster transfer rates than the peak-detect channels they replace. Though PRML techniques are relatively new, they are taking over quickly.

IEEE in uproar over re-org; another plan proposed

By Robert Bellinger

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- The IEEE reorganization effort is running into a buzzsaw of protest, much like previous attempts to shake up and slim down the admittedly bureaucratic volunteer structure.

Next Monday, the three formal proposals for recasting the IEEE--called the Traditional, Matrix and Federation models--are to be presented to attendees at the annual IEEE-USA Pace workshop here. But IEEE-USA board chairman Joel Snyder plans to present a fourth alternative, called the Incremental model, that would address "weaknesses" found in the other proposals. The fourth alternative, still being written up, "would look at the existing structure and see where it needs to be tweaked," said Snyder. "It would not look at a massive change."

IEEE-USA "has taken no formal position" on the reorganization, Snyder said. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped Snyder from unofficially characterizing the Federation and Matrix models as "unfriendly to USAB" and from leading the ad hoc committee of dissenters who don't like the proposals.

Oren equalizer IC goes ghost-busting

By Junko Yoshida

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Lured by the specter of a huge potential market, Oren Semiconductor, a privately held joint venture of Zoran Corp. and Singapore-based Goldtron Group, has entered the TV ghost-busting business with a novel single-chip video-rate adaptive equalizer.

Adaptive equalizer ICs at consumer price points can enhance any television's reception by erasing multipath ghost signals from both airwave and cable transmissions. Yet the category has been "largely ignored by most big semiconductor companies," claimed Spencer Horowitz, marketing director at Oren, formed earlier this year. "With the lead we have today in fast-digital-filter and programmable-DSP technology, we virtually own the market."

Though the new venture has only one p roduct to sell at the moment, the two parent companies have apparently determined that the venture can generate sufficient revenue to sustain a separate company. Oren employs close to 20 VLSI and software-design engineers at its Yoqne'am, Israel, headquarters. The Santa Clara office handles sales and marketing.

RF argument: put it on a chip or in software?

By Chappell Brown

NORWOOD, Mass. -- As advanced radio-frequency (RF) technology moves from a niche dominated by military priorities into the limelight of the consumer-electronics arena, accepted design principles are undergoing a revolution fueled by the economic demands of mass markets. Under that pressure, two diametrically opposed directions in advanced radio technology are emerging in response to the need for low-cost RF products.

One effort seeks to transform radio from an essential ly hardware-oriented analog technology into a purely digital form known as the software radio. An opposite trend is to compress radio technology into a single-chip, all-hardware version that can benefit from the economies of scale of the semiconductor industry.

Both trends could reduce the cost per channel of radio technology, and software radio technology in particular could expand the capacity of available frequency bands--a critical issue as more consumers buy cellular phones.

Frost & Sullivan forecasts boom in warfare systems

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- War may be hell, but it's going to be a good business for electronics vendors in the next six years.

A new report from market-researcher Frost & Sullivan predicts that sales outside the United States of electronic warfare systems will grow at a compound 6 percent rate from $3.67 billion in 1994 to $5.36 billion in 2001.

Th e biggest growth region for such systems will be Asia/Pacific, whose market share will increase from 29 to 39 percent during the period. Sales in both western and eastern Europe are expected to fall, the report said.

The report notes that gallium-arsenide microwave ICs are fast replacing RF modules and heavy metal ruggedized packaging is being supplanted by lightweight plastic packaging to handle single-chip integrated circuitry.

Zeitnet preparing ATM software tools

By Loring Wirbel

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- ZeitNet Inc., an early developer of Asynchronous Transfer Mode interface cards for Sbus and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) buses, is shifting focus to providing middleware development tools for ATM-network developers. Expanding on last fall's effort to develop application programming interfaces for ATM networking layers, ZeitNet this fall is fielding a suite of modular ATM software tools.

ZeitNet president Amit Shah said the new offerings are not just a complement to hardware but a recognition that "ATM is largely about software, not hardware. If you try to make it in this business on a NIC [network-interface controller] basis, you will be beaten by Fast Ethernet."

Shah emphasized that board-level hardware products will continue to be important for the company's growth. Software, however, will be a more critical licensing vehicle for ATM newcomers.

Particularly critical to that effort will be the Z-ATMplementer, an API suite that will allow developers to create native ATM transport-protocol applications in as straightforward a manner as developing ATM applications based on LAN emulation, using legacy LAN protocols.

Lattice faces capacity crunch

By Brian Fuller

HILLSBORO, Ore. -- Fabless programmable-logic vendor Lattice Semiconductor Corp., seeking more capacity to satisfy rising customer demand, might not get it next year from its only foundry source, Seiko Epson (Tokyo).

In a 10Q quarterly report form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Aug. 4, Lattice reported that Seiko Epson and its U.S. affiliate S-MOS told Lattice officials that demand is so high that the company might not be able to increase Lattice's wafer allotment next year or even offer "quantities consistent with historical levels."

The companies are in early negotiations for Lattice's capacity needs for fiscal 1997, which starts in April, and Lattice said that it has plenty of capacity from Seiko to satisfy its forecast for its fiscal 1996.

Still, the report prompted financial analysts to downgrade the company's near-term investment outlook, which sent the company's stock tumbling several dollars, though share prices are starting to recover.

ADI, Aware roll ADSL chip set

By Loring Wirbel

NORWOOD, Mass. ý Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) and Aware Inc. have used an ADI Sharc DSP processor to produce a first-generation chip set to meet American National Standards Institute specs for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL). ADI claims that the AD6333 set is the first to meet both 4-Mbit/ second and 6-Mbit/s specs for downstream ADSL speeds over twisted-pair wire.

ADI and Aware have worked together for nearly three years on ADSL, hybrid fiber/coax modulation and very high-speed ADSL, which will extend downstream ADSL speeds to ATM rates of 51 Mbits/s. AT&T Paradyne has introduced a partially compliant ADSL chip set, but others investing in the technology, including a Motorola/Amati team and PairGain Technologies Inc., are still several months away from producing ADSL devices.

The AD6333 set includes an analog-fr ont-end daughtercard and several discrete op amps, as well as three digital devices: the 21061 Sharc, a digital-interface front end and a digital-filter IC. The $170 price per set for OEM volumes is an inclusive price for the AFE module as well as chips.

Rupert Baines, marketing manager at ADI, said that ADSL's primary aim has shifted since the spec originated three years ago. At the time, phone companies were promoting ADSL as a vehicle for bringing interactive video services to the home through phone jacks. Now, however, both CATV companies and phone companies consider "Internet access as the killer market, a shift which makes maximum bandwidth a critical factor, and which makes the PC rather than the TV the delivery vehicle," Baines said.

Software searches out pc-board 'opens'

By Stan Runyon

CONCORD, Mass. -- Opens remain the single most p ervasive fault in manufacturing printed-circuit boards. Unfortunately, finding opens has become even more of a challenge, as the vigors required by surface-mount technology increasingly clash with the mounting need to turn out boards ever more quickly.

GenRad Inc. has a solution: Junction Xpress.

Part of a comprehensive suite of fault-finding tools, Junction Xpress is unusual in that it is purely a vectorless software technique. No hardware or special fixturing is required, as with capacitive or other methods that use probes, overclamping fixtures, digital instrumentation or other circuitry.

Not only does Junction Xpress detect faults in SMT production, it precisely distinguishes the location of each failure.

"Today's low manufacturing margins demand lowest costs but not at the expense of fault coverage and quality," said Gerhard Lipski, director of marketing for GenRad's Board Test Business. "Junction Xpress is more economical and reliable than competing solutions because it can be performed with only a traditional bed-of-nails fixture.

HP creates RF simulator

By Richard Goering

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- A new type of circuit simulator for modulated and transient RF signals has been unveiled by Hewlett-Packard's EEsof division. Called Circuit Envelope, the simulator differs from both Spice and harmonic balance solutions because it combines time- and frequency-domain modeling.

The new simulator was developed internally at HP, which is applying for a patent on the technology. It's aimed at high-frequency circuits such as amplifiers, mixers, oscillators, phase-locked loops, automatic gain control and automatic level control. Charles Plott, product manager at HP EEsof, said it can handle circuits with around 100 transistors, and is best-suited for frequencies ranging from hundreds of MHz to 40 GHz.

Plott said that there are four basic typ es of circuit simulators today. Spice and dynamic convolution simulators work in the time domain while harmonic balance and s-parameter simulators handle the nonlinear and linear frequency domains, respectively. Circuit Envelope is different. It handles modulation information in the time domain, while the RF carrier and its harmonics are calculated in the frequency domain.

Backplanes eye serial storage

By Terry Costlow

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- One comparatively easy aspect of putting together a disk storage system--building an enclosure for the drives--will change as serial interfaces gain in popularity. Several issues, including the design of backplanes for serial storage systems, will take center stage when the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA) holds its annual Diskcon conference here this week.

The emergence of two serial links, Fiber Channel and Serial Storage Architecture (SSA), is causing a lot of designers to rethink a number of design issues that have previously been well understood. Since these data channels will typically be used with several disk drives, the cabinets that house them will be an important part of the infrastructure. Designing enclosures for SCSI drives is well understood but serial packaging will be a big issue.

"Today, it doesn't take much intelligence to design for SCSI. It's largely cabling, and the rules are simple," said Bill McMaken, engineering manager at Trimm Technologies Inc. (Las Vegas), an enclosure maker specializing in redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID). "With SSA and Fiber Channel, you have to go to a backplane."

Hardware, software to fly at embedded show

By David Lieberman

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Th e Embedded Systems Conference opens next week with a slew of new hardware and software for the burgeoning embedded-systems market, a range of new entries as diverse as the market itself.

In VMEbus, for example, Pentek Inc. (Norwood, N. J.) will take the wraps off a MIX mezzanine card for its DSP boards, which are based on Texas Instruments Inc.'s TMS320C30 or '40. The MIX card, Model 4275-007, a delta-sigma A/D converter sporting 32 of Analog Devices Inc.'s 16-bit AD776 converters, features sampling rates up to 100 kHz and built-in anti-aliasing filters.

Performance Computer Company (Rochester, N.Y.), for its part, will take the wraps off an integrated Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) solution for VMEbus, a 100-Mbit/second board with TCP/IP in residence and running under Wind River System's VxWorks. "Traditionally, a single-board computer and FDDI controller were required for FDDI TCP/IP connectivity," said Don Turrell, president of parent Performance Technologies Inc. "Having TCP/IP on board el iminates the need for a CPU board and avoids VMEbus latencies. In addition to improved data transfer performance, overall system cost is dramatically reduced," he said.

American Eltec Inc. (Princeton, N.J.) comes to the show with a scalable single-board computer (SBC) platform for VME that can be configured with one or two 25- or 33-MHz 68060 microprocessors and with a 32-bit or 64-bit VMEbus interface. The SBC contains Ethernet and 16-bit SCSI 2 interfaces on board as well as on-board full-color, 1,152-x-900-resolution graphics. Containing up to 4 Mbytes of flash E2PROM, the board accepts plug-in memory mezzanine modules for adding DRAM, SRAM or flash, said director of sales and marketing Michael Humphrey. Pricing starts at $3,440, with delivery in two to three weeks ARO.

In the smaller-form-factor- bus arena, Ziatech Corp. (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) will take the wraps off the first two STD32 boards with live-insertion, or hot-swap, capabilities, implemented in accord with a recent addendum to the STD 32 spec. Multibus II live-insertion systems will also be announced at the conference by Intel's OEM Modules Operation (Hillsboro, Ore.). While the Multibus II scheme modifies only the backplane and accepts conventional Multibus II boards, the STD32 scheme maintains its conventional backplane while add-in boards are modified for hot swap. "Five levels of staggered fingers are used to ensure proper signal and power sequencing during insertion and removal of cards," a Ziatech spokesman said.

The two hot-swap STD32 boards, available in November, are the Model ZT76CT40 14.4 kbits/s modem and the Model ZT77CT61 96-point digital I/O card. The former, providing data, fax and voice functions, is priced at $595 and the latter at $495.

Cabletron retunes Spectrum

By Loring Wirbel

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- Cabletron Systems Inc. is turning to a spate of partners to move its object-oriented "Spectrum" network-management platform into system-management tasks. While the company has not promised dates for deliverables, the program involves three levels of integrating network and systems management: graphics interface, event- and alarm-integration, and full knowledge-base integration.

While several partnerships were announced, a key to the effort rests with Calypso Software Systems Inc., a small Manchester, N.H.-based software company that produces distributed client/server system-management tools. An earlier product, MaestroVision, will be replaced by a new suite of tools integrated with Cabletron's Spectrum that Calypso calls Atrium EMS (Enterprise Management System).

Patricia Chrystycz, director of systems and network management marketing at Cabletron, said that network-management platforms have broadened their scope enough to incorporate system-management functions, such as database and print-management functions. While Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp. and SunSoft Inc. have made efforts to move their net-management tools into systems management, Cabletron has made special moves to work with existing leaders in systems management. Those players include Tivoli Systems Inc. (Austin, Texas) and Computer Associates International Inc. (Garden City, N.Y.).

Diamond mines Ark controller

By Rick Boyd-Merritt

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- PC-adapter-card maker Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. has tapped a new silicon partner in Ark Logic to deliver its latest graphics board. The Diamond Stealth64 Graphics 2001 is the company's latest midrange PC-graphics accelerator.

"Part of Diamond's strategy is we are silicon agnostic," said Ken Wirt, Diamond's vice president of marketing. "We use S3, Cirrus and Weitek chips now and have used Tseng Labs and Western Digital controllers in the past. What we get by using the A rk Logic chip is exceptional performance at a price point below $200."

Indeed, Diamond expects retailers to sell the model 2201 card, configured with a maximum of 2 Mbytes of DRAM, for $189. The card is also available with 1 Mbyte of DRAM.

The Ark 2000PV controller supports resolutions of up to 1,600 x 1,200 and refresh rates as fast as 90 Hz. In a configuration with 2 Mbytes of DRAM, the card will support the 24-bit "true color" depth of 16.7 million colors at a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

Mobile and multimedia comm muscle into Embedded Systems Conference

By Ron Wilson

AUSTIN, Texas -- As the 1995 Embedded Systems Conference approaches, CPU vendors are already weighing in with chip and strategy announcements. The target this year is not just communications gear and laser printers, but mobile and multimedia communications. The PowerPC ca mp will launch new RISC processors, and workstation superpower Sun Microsystems will activate an aggressive embedded-systems strategy. Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) Ltd., a current leader in the target markets, will be moving fast to hold on to its edge.

The most concrete information to appear so far comes in the form of two CPU announcements. IBM Microelectronics will reveal the PowerPC 403GC, an integrated processor developed for the set-top box market. Last week, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector unveiled the MPC821, a PowerPC-based chip closely related to the 68000-based 68360 communications processor.

The IBM and Motorola chips have several similarities, beginning with their view of the market. Both chips envision an embedded application where intensive computing and communications tasks are governed by a real-time, multitask kernel. The two differ primarily in how they meet that challenge."The 403GC is essentially the same chip as our first embedded PowerPC part, the 403GA," explained IBM mark eting manager Elliott Newcombe, "except for the addition of a memory-management unit. The GC was developed for a specific customer's set-top box, and this customer had some very specific requirements for the MMU. We worked with them to make the part more general, and introduced it."

Glut of AM-LCDs triggers price war

By Brian Fuller

NEW WESTMINSTER, Canada -- The predicted glut of active-matrix LCDs has hit the market a year sooner than expected, leaving vendors to slug it out in an unprecedented price war, and bringing many customers an unexpected cost bonus to help them break into new markets for the previously pricey LCDs.

Thanks to a surge in capacity, soon-to-come competition from Korea and process improvements that have significantly boosted yields, the former worldwide shortage of AM-LCDs has been reversed in the space of 18 months. Pric es have crashed through the $1,000-per-panel barrier and now hover around $700.

"There's a real war for market share," said Keith Martin, director of product development for Dynapro Technologies Inc., headquartered here, which makes systems for industrial control. "There's more money in the TFT world going forward."

Several factors have converged to prompt the overcapacity situation, which, though forcing panel vendors for the time being to grin and bear lower margins, is expected to help expand the market over time, vendors and industry observers said.

IBM to describe silicon circuits in the multi-GHz region

By Chappell Brown

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. -- Silicon circuits operating in the multi-gigahertz region, designed for IBM Corp.'s silicon germanium process, will be described at the upcoming Bipolar-BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Conference , starting October 2 in Minneapolis. The circuits were developed by IBM researchers and various companies and employ heterostructure bipolar transistors made possible by IBM's Ultrahigh Vacuum Chemical Vapor Deposition (UHV-CVD) process. Although SiGe transistors have been generating speed records for some time, the new figures relate to manufacturable circuits, rather than isolated laboratory devices, pointed out Bernie Meyerson, the IBM scientist who developed the process.

"IBM has been aggressively pushing this technology out into the marketplace," Meyerson added, "and the days when it was enough to simply demonstrate a new capability in the lab are over." Recent announcements of record-breaking SiGe devices are fairly meaningless in the context of today's commercially driven technologies, in Meyerson's view. It was that kind of pressure that persuaded IBM to develop SiGe technology.

"I was involved in gallium arsenide technology for a while and participated in the decision-making process that resu lted in the commitment to silicon germanium," Meyerson explained. "It was a painful decision--there are many very positive aspects to GaAs technology, but we felt that we just couldn't compete with silicon."

To seed the new silicon technology, IBM has licensed its UHV-CVD equipment designs to Leybold AG (Hanau, Germany) which is now selling the equipment to anyone interested in getting into the high-speed silicon business. "That means we will be getting increased competition in this area, but we realized we would need commercial-grade tools to push this technology," said Meyerson. He added that he felt it would be a mistake to try and own the technology.

Digital video disk rivals seek to merge standards

By Junko Yoshida

BERLIN, Germany -- Executives at Philips Electronics and Sony Corp., developers of the MultiMedia CD (MMCD) format, have res umed negotiations with the top management of the rival Toshiba Corp.-Time Warner alliance, promoter of Super Density (SD) digital video disk. The objective: merge the two incompatible standards for the next-generation high-density digital video disk.

"Reflecting the announcement by the Technical Working Group of the computer industry on Aug. 14--which noted that the industry needs a single format, not two--and the public desire to have one system, we've initiated preliminary talks," said Henk Bodt, Philips Electronics executive vice president. He spoke at a press conference last week at the opening of International Funkausstellung Berlin, the largest consumer electronics show in Europe.

Although Bodt said that "we are hopeful that the discussions will bear fruit," he warned that "we do not have concrete proposals on the table yet. How far the gap [between the two competing formats] is and where the bridge will be built still need to be discussed further."

Startups prep 3-D rendering chips for PCs

By Ron Wilson

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --Two Bay Area startups, 3Dfx Interactive Inc. and Rendition, are racing to put 3-D rendering chips into personal computers by Christmas. The two have similar concepts of what game developers need but have taken rather different approaches to fulfilling those needs.

One point of agreement is the interest in the PC as a games platform. In a survey conducted by 3Dfx, more than half the respondents--who included games publishers, tool vendors and platform vendors, as well as games developers--are targeting the PC with at least some of their products.

Yet, those vendors are not finding the PC a platform ready to meet their needs, according to the survey. Respondents cited the three most important new developments for next-generation games as interactive 3-D, multiplayer networking and faster CPUs. It is the former n eed--for animated 3-D images on the PC--that 3Dfx and Rendition are aiming to meet.

Andy Keane, director of marketing at 3Dfx, explained: "We see games developers looking at the PC as a platform. But to achieve the effects they want, these developers are looking for hardware they haven't had access to before--Z-buffering, alpha blending and filtered texture mapping that really work."

Thomson moves on digital TV in Europe

BERLIN --Thomson Consumer Electronics has announced the company's big move into digital television in Europe, at Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin, the largest consumer-electronics show in Europe, which opened last Saturday.

Chosen by Canal Plus and France Telecom as a supplier for their digital decoder boxes for delivery this fall, Thomson has also received a big boost by Nethold, one of the world's largest pay-TV companies, for Open TV, a digital interactive set-top designed by an alliance of Thomson and Sun Microsystems.

They demonstrated Open TV in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it had gained no major support.

Nethold will offer interactive services to its customers in Europe and South America using Open TV.

Paul Lindemann Moller, manager of Thomson Consumer Electronics GmbH, said Thomson is on the "short list" as a potential manufacturer of digital add-on-boards for Premiere, one of Europe's leading program suppliers. The boxes will be delivered for Premiere's new digital program and additional services beginning in the first half of 1996.

New architecture rolls from Cisco

SAN JOSE, Calif. --Cisco Systems Inc. will introduce a new bus architecture for its high-end routers next month at NetWorld + Interop. It will support distributed LAN switching for the first time with a core bandwidth above 2 Gbits/second.

The Cy Bus forms the heart of a new enterprise series of routers, the 7500, which will integrate switching aspects of the CiscoFusion program for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) migration.

Many LAN switching-hub vendors have moved into direct competition with Cisco by offering distributed multiprotocol routing on local switching nodes. While Cisco still believes in centralized calculation of routing tables within an ATM or LAN-switching environment, the architecture of the new 7500 offers a mirror-image form of competition to the likes of Digital Equipment Corp. and Alantec Corp.

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