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Intel plugs Canmore x86 into televisions(Electronic Engineering Times Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SAN FRANCISCO - Intel Corp.'s first x86-based chip for consumer electronics is looking pretty good, and the next one could be hard to beat. The CE 3100, aka Canmore, represents an initiative that speaks to everything from Intel's growing system-on-chip (SoC) capabilities to its drive toward Internet TV, a concept that has left many pioneers dead by the roadside. The new chip sports a 3,000 Dhrystone MIPS x86 core, three DDR2 memory channels and a graphics block from Imagination Technologies capable of spitting out 13 million polygons a second in a chip dissipating less than 10 watts (W). And that's using 90-nanometer (nm) process technology and a three-year-old notebook PC core. The chip comes with a full software stack and reference design for use in Blu-Ray players as well as set-tops and TVs for both the U.S. Tru2Way cable spec and Europe's Digital Video Broadcasting standard. Samsung and Toshiba have said they will design systems with Canmore, and other giants including Sony have expressed interest. Next up is Sodaville, where Intel swaps in its 2-W Atom x86 core and leverages its 45-nm process technology. The 2009-generation chip will be part of a family of devices customized for various consumer systems. "This is a really different chip for the consumer guys," said Steven Wilson, principal analyst for consumer video technologies at ABI Research (Oyster Bay, N.Y.). "It has a lot of graphics capability and raw performance you don't usually see in traditional consumer electronics gear." Intel has not announced pricing for the chip, which will be in production in a few weeks, making it hard to gauge exactly where it might fit. Wilson said it could be at the very least a good platform for high-end Blu-Ray drives looking to add fancy user interface features and is well timed for cable operators looking for powerful but low-cost systems to run upcoming interactive services. "Two or three years down the road this could be a very inexpensive platform covering a range of products," said Wilson. Beyond the graphics and CPU performance, Intel is touting its x86 as the native silicon for the Web - the next big thing for today's digital TVs. "The TV is at an early stage of delivering connectivity, so we think it is a good time to get this going," said Eric Kim, general manager of Intel's digital home group, who announced Canmore at the Intel Developer Forum Wednesday (Aug. 20). Kim launched the chip along with a software framework developed in partnership with Yahoo! for delivering Internet services on a TV via software widgets. About a dozen companies including U.S. cable TV giant Comcast and set-top maker Motorola have agreed to help define and manage the software environment, which Intel calls the Widget Channel. "After flat panels and high definition, people want to bring the Internet to the TV," said Patrick Barry, vice president of connected TV services at Yahoo! Mark Francisco, a Comcast fellow, said the cable operator sees the Widget Channel as a complement to the Tru2Way services it and other U.S. cable companies are starting to deploy. Tru2Way represents a set of stable applications and services in a managed end-to-end cable environment, while the Widget Channel could be an avenue for short-lived applets customized by users and related to time-sensitive events such as the Beijing Olympics. "Intel's schedule for the chip and software is critical because the cable operators are trying to roll out Tru2Way services this fall," said Rick Doherty, principal at the Envisioneering Group (Seaford, N.Y.). As for Blu-Ray, Intel's timing is perfect. If Intel makes gains in this space, it will be largely at the expense of Sigma Designs, whose processor is used in most Blu-Ray drives. With the format war just settled, drive makers are focusing on how to roll out a range of low-cost to high-end drives. "Canmore has the potential to grow the population of Blu-Ray players greatly because we are still in an early adopter phase," said Andy Parsons, senior vice president of advanced product development at Pioneer and marketing chair of the Blu-Ray Association. About six million Blu-Ray drives have shipped in the United States to date, most of them built into Sony Playstation 3 consoles. With the format war settled, there are some 900 Blu-Ray titles, more than double the number just six months ago. Blu-Ray Live players, which can link to the Internet, are just hitting the market, with first products out from Samsung and Sony. Blu-Ray players range from less than $300 to more than $800. Beyond the silicon Intel hired Jim Crammond, a senior designer with a background at set-top companies including Digeo, to help define the software stack for the chip. The company partnered with VividLogic to port its Tru2Way software to Canmore as part of a set-top reference design. Blu-Ray software comes from Alticast, and DVB software comes from Futarque along with software from other software and silicon partners, including Texas Instruments and Microtune, on the reference designs. The software stack is based on a standard Linux 2.6 kernel with Yahoo! providing the widget engine to enable third-party applications. The middleware supports Microsoft Windows DRM, though Windows has no other role in the platform. The effort came together under Kim, former corporate marketing officer of Samsung, hired three years ago by Intel. Kim clearly tapped his contacts and knowledge of consumer electronics, something Intel badly needed. The new direction dwarfs the much narrower Viiv platform, a living room PC initiative with which Intel had struggled over the past several years. But it's still unclear how successful the new move will be. Kim got senior executives from Comcast, Disney, Sony and Yahoo to join him on stage for the Canmore announcement, singing the praises of the move to Internet TV. "Comcast's appearance here is more an expression of openness to new ideas than a real commitment," analyst Doherty said. Intel has fallen flat in the consumer space before. Chief executive Paul Otellini made a big splash at the Consumer Electronics Show a few years ago, touting Intel silicon for microdisplays as the next big thing in digital TV. About six months later, the company folded the initiative. Many others have tried and failed to deliver Internet TV. The former Apple engineers who formed WebTV Networks were acquired by Microsoft, which is still struggling to get traction for its various living room PC concepts. 3Com and partners such as National Semiconductor debuted the Audrey system and Geode processor for consumer Web devices, which promptly flopped. Clearly, consumers want Internet TV. Intel researcher Genevieve Bell notes that 43 percent of people who watched SuperBowl 2008 had simultaneous links to the Web on their home computers, and the latest American Idol episode had 97.5 million viewers voting on their favorites via cell phones and PCs. Whether Intel can deliver the platform for Web TV is unclear. Its latest initiative certainly has a strong foothold with solid silicon, software and partners. If the 90-nm chip doesn't make a splash at the next CES, the 45-nm follow-on will likely get some significant attention at CES in 2010. http://www.eetimes.com/ Copyright 2008 United Business Media LLC. All rights reserved. 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