Intel's new 45nm targets TV space

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: The first 45nm system on chip aimed targeting televisions, and other digital living room systems, has been introduced by Intel Corp.

Formally unveiling the chip, christened, CE 4100, also known by the name of Sodaville, Intel has proved that it has gone for a very important stepwise upgrade in its efforts.

The chip maker had hopped on to such an effort marks aimed at being part of the lightning fast evolution of digital TV. The device unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum on Thursday saw Eric Kim, general manager of Intel's digital home group, pointing out that innovations in technology, user experience and business models are needed to deliver an Internet-enabled digital TV experience.

Elaborating on the new chip, developers said the CE 4100 is a follow on to Intel's first SoC for TVs, the Canmore chip announced last year at IDF. The new chip replaces an 800 MHz Pentium M core with a 1.2 GHz Atom, increasing L2 cache from 256 to 512 Mbytes. It was also pointed out that it will dissipate between 7 and 9W, down from 9.8W for Canmore. But it will have about the same performance at an estimated 3600 Dhrystone Mips. It comes spruced up with a hardware accelerator block, capable of decoding two simultaneous MPEG2, H.264 or VC1 streams at 1920x1080-progessive pixel resolutions at 60 frames per second. It also has two 533 MHz audio DSPs, Intel developers added.

Built to boost serial ATA support from the 1.5 to 3.0 Gbit/s version, the new chip also aids both DDR-2 and -3 memory and includes NOR and NAND flash controllers. The chip fits in a 27x27mm package and runs a variant of Linux that will migrate over time to Intel's Moblin. Three ODMs will have reference four- and six-layer board designs available by the end of the year, they added.