Motorola enters DVD/set-top IC fray

Electronic News, August 4, 1997 by Peter Brown

Phoenix, Ariz.--Motorola will today enter the digital video disc (DVD)/set-top box market by introducing the Scorpion MC92100 graphics processor chip targeted at intelligent TVs (iTVs), DVD, and set-top boxes (STBs). Motorola joins a growing list of companies competing in this emerging segment. Sony Semiconductor, for example, entered the DVD/STB chip market recently with its Virtuoso line of products (EN, July 21).

The MC92100 is based on a graphics overlay and mixing capabilities architecture that allows customers to incorporate interactive features such as Internet browsing, electronic program guide and other existing or new interactive features to consumer electronics applications.

"This is a combination of a graphics display chip with a graphics decoder integrated onto a single chip targeted at these specific markets," said Ed Evans, Motorola's graphics system engineering manager for Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS). "Because the Scorpion part is a programmable digital output processor it supports existing and older TVs. The Scorpion mixes and formats the data for the TV in real time enabling it to offer faster and higher performance graphics on a TV."

Mr. Evans told Electronic News that Motorola is also working on an entire back-end set-top box chipset that would include Motorola's MPEG-2 device, DSP and demodulation chip. The Scorpion device will complete the set and the company plans on rolling out the set-top box chipset sometime next year.

Future versions of the Scorpion or STB chipset may integrate additional features to allow a DVD player to offer Internet browsing or some sort of other DVD combination product.

According to Mr. Evans, the Scorpion is designed for the company's ColdFire and PowerPC microprocessors architectures; however, it can be ported to other MPUs such as Intel's Pentium architecture if customers demand it. The Scorpion is available now priced at $20 per unit in 50,000-unit quantities.

The MC92100 allows DVDs, STBs, or ITVs to display multiple windows containing interactive graphics over the traditional video stream on televisions. This will enable a user to watch TV and browse the Internet and other information sources at the same time, Motorola said.