Zoran & Goldtron Group Announce Formation of Oren Semiconductor, Ltd.; Joint Venture Company Introduces First Single Chip Digital "Ghost Canceler" IC for Worldwide Consumer Television Market

Business Wire, August 28, 1995

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1995--Zoran Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) and the Goldtron Group (Singapore) today announced the formation of Oren Semiconductor, Ltd., a joint venture company focused on the design, manufacture and marketing of "ghost" canceler integrated circuits (ICs) for the worldwide consumer television market.

Oren Semiconductor also announced immediate availability of the OR43100, a new "ghost" canceler integrated circuit (IC) that performs more than 16 billion operations per second to remove "ghost"images from television pictures.

Oren Semiconductor will address the problem of multiple images, or "ghosts" on television screens caused by the reflection of television signals off of large buildings or mountains. The company's ghost canceler ICs will be designed into consumer televisions, VCRs, cable decoders and television set-top boxes so that consumers can enjoy crisp, clear ghost-free pictures from standard over-the-air broadcasts, regardless of reception difficulties or poor cable service.

The market for these devices is expected to exceed millions of units annually. Worldwide, more than 100 million televisions are sold every year; over one third of these are sold in countries that have already established ghost canceler reference (GCR) standards to facilitate television ghost cancellation.

Goldtron and Zoran each have an equity share in Oren Semiconductor (Yoqne'am, Israel). TC Pang, Group Managing Director of Dynamar, a Goldtron Group Company, and Dr. Levy Gerzberg, President and CEO of Zoran, serve as co-Presidents of the new company.

Oren's First Customer: Philips Consumer Electronics Company

Oren Semiconductor is already working with its first customer, Philips Consumer Electronics Company (PCEC), to supply ICs for Philips' line of Magnavox ImageLock(TM) ghost canceler systems and Magnavox brand televisions. This relationship was announced by Philips, Zoran and Goldtron at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference on April 10, 1995.

Compatible with Ghost Canceler Reference Signal Standards Worldwide

Oren Semiconductor ghost canceler ICs are compatible with all GCR signal standards worldwide. In countries where a GCR signal has been established, television receivers equipped with a ghost canceler IC can automatically identify and digitally "cancel" any ghosts that would otherwise appear on the screen.

To accomplish this, a ghost canceler IC designed into a set-top box or television system stores a copy of the GCR signal in the chip's internal memory. By comparing the signal stored in the device memory with the actual broadcast signal received by the television, the system can automatically calculate and adapt the digital filter coefficients required to cancel any unwanted signals that may be causing ghost images.

In 1989, a GCR standard was established in Japan. In 1992, Philips' GCR signal was adopted as the ghost cancellation standard for U.S. broadcasters by the FCC. Since then, the Philips GCR signal has been broadly adopted by television broadcasters in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Philips anticipates that it will also be adopted by most European countries. GCR standards have also been established in Korea and Taiwan.

Core Technology for Ghost Cancellation

Oren's ghost canceler chip, the OR43100, is an adaptive equalizer "system-on-a-chip" designed to cancel multi-path echoes (ghosts) from NTSC or PAL television broadcasts, thereby removing multiple images, color distortion and image smearing.

This complete digital IC solution from Oren Semiconductor dramatically reduces total system cost by integrating a digital signal processor (DSP), 576 tap digital filter and system memory into a single chip, eliminating the need for external digital signal processing controllers and memory. The OR43100 incorporates embedded software that implements proprietary, field tested and verified ghost canceling algorithms based on GCR standards. This dramatically reduces original equipment manufacturer (OEM) design effort and time-to-market for consumer television systems.

Laying the Technology Foundation for a Future in Digital Television

In the future, Oren Semiconductor intends to apply the same patented digital filter and DSP technology currently being used for ghost cancellation in conventional analog televisions to the problem of echo cancellation in next-generation digital televisions. The company plans to target manufacturers of high-definition (HDTV) and standard definition (SDTV) televisions, digital cable television, and video-dial-tone services; all of which promise to pave the way for myriad interactive television applications in the future.

Pricing and Availability

Samples of the new OR43100 ghost canceler IC are available immediately. Production quantities will be available in Q4 of 1995. The OR43100 is available in a low cost, 64-pin plastic shrink DIP package utilizing low power 3.3-volt technology. It is priced under $25 in high volume.