SGS-Thomson Microelectronics focuses on China
SGS-Thomson Microelectronics and Sichuan Ding Tian Microelectronics have developed a semi-custom 486 microprocessor to build low cost, PC-based entertainment systems.
The static ST486DX ASIC core is being used together with a high performance semi-custom standard cell technology and a comprehensive library of functions. It can then be integrated into a single-chip 486 PC that includes the 486DX2/4 core, a UMA chip set, SVGA graphic engine, DRam controller, PAL/NTSC encoder and MPEG-2 decoder.
This will be used as the basis of a Multimedia Home System (MHS), which is being designed and manufactured by Ding Tian Microelectronics.
'MHS is a powerful, modular, low cost approach to PC multi-media and it suits very well the needs of the Chinese market,' SGS-Thomson country president for Hong Kong and China, Patrick Bouju, said.
'With the expertise of SGS-Thomson in multimedia, coupled with the experience and knowledge of Ding Tian in the same field and the support of the Ministry of Electronics Industry and the Sichuan government, we now have all the ingredients for a successful MHS development in China.' The MHS is expected to be available to the market from the third quarter of 1996.
Meanwhile, SGS-Thomson has also signed a contract with WorldSpace to develop and produce chip sets for new generation personal satellite radios.
The 'Starman' chip set that is being developed by SGS-Thomson will perform all of the receiver and decoder functions, accepting radio frequency signals from the antenna at one end and providing digital audio output at the other.
These functions are integrated into three chips - an analog front-end, a channel decoder and a source decoder.
