NC sparks computer appliances

Electronic News, May 27, 1996 by Cynthia Bournellis

Mountain View, Calif.--The advent of low-cost computer appliances for doing everything from browsing the Internet to E-mail, word processing, indexing recipes and playing video games is getting tremendous attention, primarily because technology such as Oracle's Network Computer (NC) reference platform (EN, May 20) provides an open design platform. This open framework is setting new goals and opportunities for semiconductor suppliers.

Most appliances contain at least five to seven semiconductors: processors, DRAMs, flash, modem chipsets, Ethernet chipsets and graphics and audio chips. Total chip costs per device vary depending on the product. For instance, the total cost of semiconductor content in Wyse Technology's NC-based Winterm network/Internet/intranet terminal is about $200 per device.

Next-generation Winterms, due out in the fall, will have a Web browser and will contain fewer chips but at a higher cost ($300). The new Winterm will include Intel flash, embedded x86 and graphics engines from Cirrus Logic. "We are shrinking the product down to three chips and will embed the processor with memory, MPEG, JPEG and glue logic," said Jeff McNaught, director of advanced platforms at Wyse.

Appliances already on the market include the $500 Winterm. ViewCall America trialed its $300 WEBster TV set-top box to consumers through telecommunications giant Northern Telecom last January. Consumers can use WEBster to access the Internet and ViewCall's on-line service for shopping, E-mail and home banking.

Due out this summer is @World, a $599 entertainment/Internet device from Bandai Digital Entertainment. @World, which hooks up to a television, is based on Apple Computer's Pippin technology (EN, May 20). Also available this year are next-generation video consoles from Sony and Sega, which will be capable of accessing the Internet.

Other NC devices scheduled to ship this year include Akai Electric's $300 Internet Connection box, which hooks up to a television. The device will run Oracle's PowerBrowser on the TV screen. AST Computer will deliver a new line of $500 PCs called AcerBasic in June. Though fully capable of being connected to standard VGA computer monitors, AcerBasic can also be connected to a standard television set. Others, such as Sun River Corp., plan to ship a family of network devices as well.

Some non-NC systems will appear from American Interactive Media (AIM), in New Jersey. AIM licensed proprietary chip technology from MSU Corp. in the U.K. AIM will use MSU's iSP design to build an Internet TV decoder. The iSP design provides high resolution graphics, 65,000 colors, 16-bit stereo and an integrated high-speed modem. The chip supports up to 16MB of 32-bit DRAM for various Internet applications such as Java.

Probably the most unusual appliances on the horizon are single purpose devices. Diba, Inc., in Belmont, Calif., is one company developing three new low-cost systems based on the company's Application Foundation Software and Interactive Digital Electronic Appliance (IDEA) hardware referenc3e platform. They include a compact kitchen appliance for storing recipes and nutritional information, an E-mail/phone appliance and a World Wide Web browser that hooks up to a television.

These systems, which look like something out of the classic Jetsons cartoon series, are expected to retail for between $300 and $600. Companies incorporating IDEA into their products include Zenith Electronics Corp. Zenith will ship a line of interactive televisions later this year called NetVision, which will be capable of browsing the Web, accessing E-mail and providing capability of Java terminal applications.

These appliances, regardless of which operating system they support, are spawning two new areas of opportunities for semiconductor companies. First, there's room for new architectures. Companies such as Sun Microelectronics, a division of Sun Microsystems, are working on processors based on Sun's Java programming language for the Internet and complex networks. Sun will introduce three new Java microprocessors between mid-1996 and 1997.

The second area is integration. Chip companies are being encouraged to add existing technologies onto a single chip. The NC reference platform, for example, is built on the ARM 7500 processor, a multimedia, 32-bit RISC chip with the performance equivalent to a 66MHz Intel 486. ARM 7500, designed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd., integrates video and I/O subsystems, keyboard input, audio, memory bus, network graphics and more onto a single chip.

In addition to the need for high-performance and low-cost CPUs, demand will grow for high-density, low-cost DRAM; and highly integrated multimedia chipsets. And since many computer appliances won't initially come with local storage devices, ROM or flash memory will be key for the operating system. ROM will also contain the sequences for booting up these systems.

The PowerPC processor is another likely contender. Motorola plans to build low-cost PowerPC computing devices based on the NC platform. PowerPC also has a good chance, because it has received design wins from set-top box companies. "The semiconductor companies who are successful in the set-top box market will excel in the appliance market, because they already have the reference designs," said Susan Mason, a principal in The Information Architects. Set-top box motherboards are similar to NC configurations, for example, in terms of memory, chip layout and the integration level of main chips. "What the chip companies are missing, though, is software," she added. "For instance, they need to port Java to their architecture. This is where ARM has an advantage."