Digital TV is supposed to be bigger and better, but new electronics technology also promises to make it smaller and cheaper.
Microtune, a Plano, Texas, start-up, on Tuesday introduced the MicroTuner2000, a new "tuner on a chip" that could solve analog-to-digital transition problems and allow small devices like cell phones to pick up DTV signals.
"We are the first company to come out with a silicon tuner," said Microtune vice president Jim Fontaine. "It took us about three years. It was extremely difficult to put these components on a single piece of silicon."
The chip will shrink the electronics real estate from a box the size of a pack of cards to a space the size of a fingernail.
In addition, the new tuner overcomes a significant technical problem for DTV reception: stray interference. Microtune's chip design essentially cancels out unwanted signals, Fontaine said.
The chip has a built-in bonus. Since DTV transmissions can carry scads of bits per second, handheld computer makers like Palm Computing could use the MicroTuner2000 to receive data from the airwaves, Fontaine said.
"Digital signals could deliver the 300 most popular Web pages [for example], sent by a TV broadcaster as part of its broadcast," Fontaine said.
The chip's price is already competitive with conventional tuners, Fontaine said. In million-unit orders, the tuner would be available for US$19.95 a chip, or less.
Using $22 million in start-up capital, the closely held company plans to sign on manufacturers as soon as it can. Fontaine said Microtune expects to announce deals with major cable set-top manufacturers and TV companies by the middle of the year.
