Company Develops First Mobile-tv Chip
Texas Instruments says it has developed the first system-on-chip that lets cellular phones play TV programs. When completed, TI's Hollywood processor would combine analog radio-frequency circuitry that acts as a receiver with digital chips that process signals—performing such functions as analog-to-digital conversion, demodulation, and error correction—and decode channels for viewing by users.
Texas Instruments has developed a system-on-chip that lets mobile phones play TV shows. The chip's antenna receives the TV signal from a transmission tower. The tuner locks onto the signal and then tunes into the video feed. The analog-to-digital converter processes the video feed, which is demodulated into an MPEG stream. The applications processor then processes the stream and sends it to the LCD screen. In a TI-based phone, Hollywood sends the processed material to the company's OMAP mobile-multimedia application platform, which provides the interface that lets users select the desired content. OMAP also separates the desired content from all of the other material being transmitted, performs video and audio decoding and screen formatting, and sends data to the display driver, explained Bill Krenik, TI's wireless advanced architectures manager.
Integrating these functions in one processor eliminates the need for separate components. This is a "huge advantage," Krenik said, because offering these capabilities on one chip takes up less room, thereby enabling smaller phones, reducing power consumption, and lowering overall costs.
TI is using advanced technology, including state-of-the-art 90-nanometer feature sizes, in hopes of keeping Hollywood's cost below $10 per chip when it's produced in high volumes for commercial purposes. Minimizing a cellular phone's costs is a critical factor in the competitive, price-sensitive mobile-handset market.
Krenik said advances in display technology will help spur adoption as color screens become more suitable for TV-quality images.
Several companies have announced they will produce content for TV-enabled cellular phones. For example, the Fox Entertainment Group and Vodafone plan to distribute a series consisting of 24 minute-long mobisodes (mobile episodes) in 23 countries beginning later this month.
New data-oriented services such as TV, rather than traditional voice services, may help troubled cellular providers, Krenik noted. Higher cellular usage has increased carriers' voice-related costs, while stiff competition has led them to drop rates and give away or subsidize expensive handsets.
According to Krenik, providers would generate revenue by selling TV programming on a pay-per-view or subscription basis.
In two years, he said, about 70 percent of cellular phones will have built-in digital TV receivers. Analyst Neil Strother with InStat/MDR, a market research firm, said TV phones could find audiences among mass-transit users and young consumers with the time to watch programming on their handsets. However, Strother added, the key questions are, "Will people pay extra for these phones, and how much more will they pay to watch more television?"
TI says that Hollywood samples could be available by the end of this year and that chips could be ready for testing in 2006 and for sale the following year. The US Federal Communications Commission and other standards bodies are involved.
TV phones are currently being tested in Asia, and observers expect Asia and Europe to adopt the handsets before the US.
New Magnetic Plastic Could Be Used in Storage
Scientists claim to have developed the world's first plastic magnet suitable for use as a storage medium in consumer products. Eventually, say the researchers at the UK's University of Durham, their inexpensive plastic magnetic material could improve enough to replace more-costly metals as coatings in computer hard drives.
The new material, called PANiCNQ, is a magnetic polymer, according to Naveed Zaidi, a research fellow in the university's Department of Physics.
He said, "We have recently discovered a method to induce [magnetism] in our material, so this shows some promise for its future use as a magnetic recording medium."
"Like most plastics, our material is cheap to synthesize, easy to process, and can be molded into any desired shape," he explained. It could thus be useful in consumer products—such as portable music or video players, handheld computers, or recording media for digital cameras—that would benefit from inexpensive and easily mass-produced magnetic recording media and that don't require high recording densities.
Researchers have developed magnetic plastics before, but the materials either worked only in oxygen-free environments at temperatures too low for practical use or offered very weak magnetism at higher temperatures.
The Durham researchers made their magnetic compound by combining emeraldine base polyaniline (PANi), a conductive plastic, and tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ), a polymer. Over a three-month period, they detected an increase in the material's magnetism to the point that a magnet would pick up powdered PANiCNQ.
The scientists subsequently found that they could change the proportions of PANi and TCNQ to alter the compound's magnetism as needed. The new compound is neither highly nor uniformly magnetic, but the researchers contend they can solve these problems.
Conventional magnetism is the result of a material's electron spins lining up to exert a force on some types of metal. In their polymer, the Durham team mimicked this mechanism by creating an alignment of free radicals.
Carl D. Howe, a principal at the Blackfriars Communications consultancy, said the University of Durham's new magnetic compound is exciting, but he questions how useful it would be for hard drives, "already one of the cheapest forms of storage." However, he added, plastics are inexpensive to mass produce and eventually might be useful in some sort of storage medium.
The UK researchers say they are working to make their technique yield more PANiCNQ and to make the material more magnetic. They estimate it will take between five and 10 years before their compound can be used commercially.
Researcher Makes Turbine for Computers
A researcher has developed a tiny gas turbine microengine that some day could power cell phones, PDAs, laptops, PCs, and other computing-related machines such as uninterruptible-power-supply devices.
The traditional gas turbine is often associated with very large machines, such as electrical plants and commercial jets. However, Professor Alan Epstein, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Gas Turbine Laboratory, has developed a small version of the engine.
Epstein's prototype microengine is 2 centimeters × 2 centimeters × 5 millimeters. It consists of an air compressor, combustion chamber, and turbine, and uses an external, replaceable diesel-fuel tank. The research team's goal is to make the entire package no bigger than the batteries that handheld devices and laptops currently use.
The engine's blades rotate more than a million times per minute and currently generate enough power for a handheld device.
The turbine would compete in the marketplace with batteries, which are reliable and relatively inexpensive. However, they're also comparatively bulky and heavy and don't produce a lot of power per dollar of cost.
These power limitations are a problem for consumers of handhelds, as well as specialized users such as soldiers and remote workers who rely on mobile communications devices. In some cases, these limitations force mobile-device designers to forego enhancements that would consume a lot of power.
With diesel-powered microengines, users can draw a given amount of energy 30 times longer per unit of cost than the best battery available today, Epstein said. In fact, he noted, a microengine could run 10 hours on a small container of fuel. "And," he added, "there's nothing less expensive on the planet than diesel fuel."
The microengines would also compete with fuel cells, which could beat them to market.
Both fuel cells and miniturbines could be useful in various settings, noted Rob Enderle, founding analyst of the Enderle Group, a market research firm. However, he explained, the demand for long power life is largely from people who want to use laptops or handheld devices on jets. Enderle said that regulatory agencies are not likely to let fuel cells or miniturbines on jets because both are combustion engines and thus volatile.
Epstein said the microengines should compete favorably with batteries and fuel cells because they're smaller and can be built to burn any fuel, not just diesel. This makes them versatile.
The MIT team uses silicon to make the microengines because it enables them to work with well-established, cost-effective manufacturing processes. Epstein explained that single-crystal silicon proved to be as strong as, but lighter than, the conventional metal alloys typically used in jet turbine engines.
MIT researchers have developed this miniature version of a gas-turbine engine that some day could power mobile phones, handheld devices, laptops, or even PCs. One challenge is the high degree of precision required to manufacture the tiny rotating parts. Also, the microengines shoot a tiny stream of hot exhaust gas, making them unsuitable for devices kept in pockets. The turbines also run hot.
The MIT researchers have successfully tested all the engine components but have yet to build a complete engine to the required tolerances.
News Briefs written by
Linda Dailey Paulson, a freelance technology writer based in Ventura, California. Contact her at ldpaulson@yahoo.com.
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