|
|||
|
|
|
Tuner for Toshiba Toshiba taps iReady for Internet tuner By David Lammers, EE Times Tokyo -- Toshiba Corp. has become the first to license the Internet Tuner core from iReady Corp. (San Jose, Calif.). Toshiba plans to offer the core to ASIC customers in consumer electronics and use it in its own system products. Internet-capable cellular telephones, set-top boxes and even toys are expected to get Internet connectivity with an additional silicon budget of 40,000 to 100,000 gates. Tatsuo Sakaue, ASIC-technology-development manager at Toshiba, said the iReady approach is ideal for consumer products with a low power budget. "If we use the software-plus-CPU approach, we can deliver more features for high-end consumer products with Internet capability. But the iReady core is really suitable for the mobile arena, where we can achieve very low power consumption--perhaps only an additional 300 W." Founded in January 1996, iReady has taken a consumer-centric approach to the Internet, minimizing costs and power consumption. A hotel phone, for example, could be developed around the Internet Tuner core and a small LCD, giving a traveler Pop3/SMTP Internet e-mail access to a central access point in the hotel. Such capability, iReady said, would add less than $40 to the phone's bill of materials. As system-on-chip silicon increasingly defines the functionality of a consumer product, iReady's mix and match approach will make it possible to add network sockets as needed, said iReady chief executive officer Ryo Koyama. A basic TCP/IP connection might require 30,000 gates, a Web browser 40,000 more gates, e-mail capability a further 20,000 gates and so on. As ASIC densities soar with advanced process technologies, adding Internet capability with 100,000 gates or less is far less costly than adding a separate ROM device. (Next article.)
[This article comes from EE Times in a joint cooperative effort with the Motley Fool. For more articles like it, please look at Fool's Gold every weekend or simply go to the Fool's Gold Mine and page through our back issues, which all have clever and cool EE Times articles in them.]
|
|
|
© Copyright 1995-2000, The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool is a registered trademark and the "Fool" logo is a trademark of The Motley Fool, Inc. Contact Us
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..