Intel Unveils 45nm System-on-Chip for Internet TV

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, San Francisco, Sept. 24, 2009 – Intel Corporation today unveiled the Intel® Atom™ processor CE4100, the newest System-on-Chip (SoC) in a family of media processors designed to bring Internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players and advanced set-top boxes.

The CE4100 processor, formerly codenamed "Sodaville," is the first 45nm-manufactured consumer electronics (CE) SoC based on Intel architecture. It supports Internet and broadcast applications on one chip, and has the processing power and audio/video components necessary to run rich media applications such as 3-D graphics.

"Traditional broadcast networks are quickly shifting from a linear model to a multi-stream, Internet-optimized model to offer consumers digital entertainment that complements the TV such as social networking, 3-D gaming and streaming video," said Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Digital Home Group. "At the center of the TV evolution is the CE4100 media processor, a new architecture that meets the critical requirements for connected CE devices."

CE Industry Rallies Around Intel CE Media Processors
Joining Kim on stage during his keynote were executives from Adobe Systems, BBC (British Broadcast Company), CBS, Cisco and TransGaming. These and other companies are working with Intel to advance content, services and infrastructure for connected CE devices.

As TVs become more interactive, Adobe* Flash* is an important enabling technology to help content developers blend together video, 3-D animation and rich graphics. Intel is working with Adobe to port Adobe Flash Player 10 to the family of Intel CE media processors to optimize the playback of graphics and H.264 video to enable for the first time a wide array of Flash-based content on the television.

"The architecture of Intel media processors provides a powerful and innovative platform to showcase Flash-based applications in a vivid way," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Flash Player 10 combined with the performance of the Intel media processor and its support for standards such as OpenGL ES 2.0 offers a compelling environment for Flash-based games, videos and other rich Web content and applications." The companies expect Adobe Flash Player 10 to be available in the first half of 2010 for Intel media processor-based CE devices.

Malachy Moynihan, vice president for video product strategy, Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group, discussed how delivering premium video to the TV will require intelligent networks and content storage.

"Cisco is helping service providers evolve their networks to a medianet, integrating the best elements of the existing broadcast infrastructure with carrier-grade IP networks to provide new services like unified video experience," said Moynihan. "The crucial components to enable a unified video experience include the need for an emerging monetization model across the video ecosystem as well as client devices with quality graphics and a high-performance processor to truly enhance the visual appeal for consumers."

On-Demand Gaming for TV
TransGaming President and CEO Vikas Gupta announced an on-demand gaming service called GameTree.tv* to be optimized for connected digital TVs and CE devices powered by Intel media processors.

"At TransGaming, we're in the business of enabling existing games to operate on alternative operating systems," said Gupta. "Since Intel CE processors run on Intel architecture, it's a fast and easy migration from the PC to the CE platform."

The GameTree.tv service will offer a broad library of games such as sports, action and adventure and provide content developers with a software development kit to support the migration of existing games and the development of new games based on the Intel CE platform. It will help revolutionize the delivery and global consumption of video games and provide a turnkey monetization strategy for CE manufacturers and cable/satellite providers (MSOs).

TV Widgets, Interactive TV Applications
Intel CE media processors provide a full-featured software framework called Widget Channel for the development of Internet applications, or TV widgets. Broadcast networks such as CBS are expanding the gallery of TV widgets to help their viewers find and connect to premium content in a more personalized manner.

"Navigation is the No. 1 challenge for today's television viewers," said George Schweitzer, president, CBS Marketing. "Intel's CE technology and our new TV Widget platform are designed to help people find the shows they want and discover new programs that are relevant to their interests. What's more, the TV Widget gives us another platform to connect and interact with our audience while delivering an exciting new television experience."

Intel is working with the industry to expand Widget Channel to provide consumers a range of services such as movies, music, games and personal videos. TV Widgets and services shown at IDF were from Accedo Broadband*, The Associated Press*, BIGSTAR.tv*, CBS*, CinemaNow*, Dailymotion*, Immediatek*, Mediafly, MyVideo*, Netflix*, PlayJam*, RadioTime*, RallyPoint*, ShowTime Networks*, Tagesschau* and WhereverTV.*

Intel® Atom™ Processor CE4100
The CE4100 processor can deliver speeds up to 1.2GHz while offering lower power and a small footprint to help decrease system costs. It is backward compatible with the Intel® Media Processor CE 3100 and features Intel® Precision View Technology, a display processing engine to support high-definition picture quality and Intel® Media Play Technology for seamless audio and video. It also supports hardware decode of up to two 1080p video streams and advanced 3-D graphics and audio standards. To provide OEMs flexibility in their product offerings, new features were added such as hardware decode for MPEG4 video that is ready for DivX* Home Theater 3.0 certification, an integrated NAND flash controller, support for both DDR2 and DDR3 memory and 512K L2 cache. The CE SoC contains a display processor, graphics processor, video display controller, transport processor, a dedicated security processor and general I/O including SATA-300 and USB 2.0. For more product information, visit www.intelconsumerelectronics.com.

Solar market to recover … eventually

The PV (photovoltaic) industry has been hit hard during these challenging economic times with demand dropping approximately 50% this year from 2008 levels and a severe oversupply situation occurring, giving rise to fear, uncertainty, and doubt as to the future of the industry.

But there is reason for hope, industry insiders assert.

To set the stage, it helps to understand how the PV industry got to this point. Jim Hines, research director for semiconductor and solar at market research company Gartner Inc explained that three major events coincided to thrust the PV industry into a severe oversupply situation. First, there was a build up of capacity that had been going on for a couple of years and culminated at the end of 2008. Second, overall economic conditions collapsed. And third was the situation in Spain, in which market players got ahead of themselves and local legislation changes altered the PV playing field there.

“The Spanish market was really a surprise last year," said Dr Henning Wicht, senior director and principal analyst at iSuppli Corp Deutschland GmbH. "There was much more installed than anybody could think. In one year, they installed approximately 2 to 2.5GW. This was the largest amount of solar to be installed in one year.

“The consequence was that there was a rush to get hardware to install solar power parks by a very precise date, which was the 28th of September, because every installation put in place after this date would apply to a lower feed-in tariff. So everybody was rushing for this date which led to a continuous strong demand of hardware modules, which made module producers believe that there was close-to-infinite demand. They were ramping every year. It’s not that they were relying on their production but everybody was ramping at 50 to 100% every year, for three to four years," he continued.

"From the supply/demand data we saw that in 2008, there was already more produced than installed, but this didn’t get through to the market because there was such strong demand, and people didn’t realize there was already more modules on the market than could be absorbed. Seeing a market increase by 50% in just one year makes people dream,” he said.

Indeed, iSuppli has reported that there are close to 8GW of modules to be produced but only 4GW to be installed in 2009.

“The question is, how can that happen? That means that every second module is going to the inventory,” Wicht pointed out.

In trying to assess a forecast, Gartner analysts said they discovered that the major drivers for the solar market are starting to realign themselves. “Even though this is a phenomenally horrible market for vendors right now, it has turned into a fantastic opportunity for end users," explained Alfonso Velosa III, research director for semiconductors at Gartner. "There were two things that needed to happen: end users wanting to buy the systems and the financing pipelines starting to loosen up. We are finally starting to see movement on both sides.

“It’s actually really starting to get good in that deals are starting to happen. The complication though is that, whether you are talking about the US or Europe, the sales cycle takes a long time,” he said, noting that European sales cycles usually take between 12 and 15 months, while US cycles typically range from 12 to 24 months.

That said, Gartner currently forecasts relatively severe contraction based on a number of projects that are being completed in the second half of the year, Velosa said.

On a revenue basis, with the excess capacity in the PV supply chain, ASPs (average selling prices) have gone through the floor, leading revenue forecasts to be cut in half for modules.

Gartner estimates that right now the oversupply of polysilicon is on the order of 2.5 to 3 times the demand, and expects this pricing environment to continue for some time – certainly through next year and well into 2011. The situation is the same in the solar cell module market with almost 3X excess capacity, Velosa noted.

“We see excess capacity going through 2012," he said. "We so don’t see prices firming up, either on a polysilicon basis or a module basis until 2012 at the earliest, possibly even 2013 because we continue to hear about more expansion plans.”

Gartner also believes the stimulus money from the Chinese and US governments have the potential to keep the PV ASPs in a degraded state, which, when combined with all of the work going into improvements on technology, efficiency, and processing, will drive the competitive dynamics of the industry, with more attractive products for end users. In essence, the ASP erosion is helping the industry remain competitive.

“This is bad news in the short term for a lot of the suppliers and companies trying to get a foothold in the PV value chain, but longer term, it is going to be a positive for growth and for uptake in demand for solar energy, particularly PV," Hines pointed out. "It is what is needed to happen to drive costs down. The question becomes how to cross the chasm as a company that wants to participate in this market."

From a vendor point of view, Applied Materials Inc’s Jonathan Pickering, VP of marketing and business development for solar, said, “2008 calendar year was a banner year for the industry with tremendous growth in the end market. I think there’s still some lack of clarity about what the final numbers look like this year because it got off to a bit of a slow start and then there’s the seasonality effect.

“One of the challenges was that people were seeing pretty rapid declines in module pricing," he continued. "It’s like all of us: If we see prices going down, we tend to wait and see if they go down again the next month. On the flip side of that, for example, in Germany the subsidies are going to be ramped down and adjusted every year. People are watching that."

Pickering said that while it is too early to say for sure, it looks like the end market will be flat to down 10 or so percent this year. "What we are seeing is that several of the big manufacturers, certainly in China, are running pretty close to capacity – so people are really ramped up now, which wasn’t the case in the March-April timeframe,” he added.

CIA invests in low-power Wi-Fi Intel spinoff

Low-power Wi-Fi specialist and Intel spinoff company GainSpan Corp today announced a strategic investment and technology development agreement with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's independent strategic investment firm.

According to GainSpan, its technology provides the lowest power consuming Wi-Fi single chip solution for wireless sensor networks and other embedded applications, allowing devices to run for up to 10 years on a single AA battery.

"GainSpan's innovative technology helps address critical technology needs of the US Intelligence Community," said Troy M Pearsall, executive VP of architecture and engineering at In-Q-Tel, in a statement. "The power requirements of Wi-Fi have traditionally limited its application in sensor networks, but GainSpan's low-power Wi-Fi devices enable new classes of solutions that will provide key technology capabilities to both the government and commercial markets."

In-Q-Tel has engaged with more than 140 companies and delivered more than 240 technology solutions to the intelligence community.

Vijay Parmar, president and CEO, GainSpan, said that the agreement with In-Q-Tel ensures that the US Intelligence Community has easy access to GainSpan technology. "Also, as a member of In-Q-Tel's technology partner portfolio, In-Q-Tel provides us introduction to other portfolio companies where there are opportunities for knowledge-sharing and co-development," he added.

GainSpan did not disclose the investment amount.