ATI Chips in Majority of New HDTV Sets

[Gregg Lengling]

In a press release issued last week ATI Technologies said "the vast majority of commercially available integrated Digital Cable Ready (DCR) High Definition Televisions use ATI's NXT2003."


Of 11 consumer electronics companies announcing DCR HDTV sets, nine use ATI's NXT series components, including Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi, Sony, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Thomson, Sharp and another unidentified manufacturer.


"ATI is proud to enable and facilitate the DTV transition," said Mike Gittings, Director of Marketing, DTV Products for ATI. "Through vision and innovation, ATI is delivering the quality components that our customers demand. The NXT2003/4/5 product family provides the key technologies that enabled manufacturers to develop HDTV sets that comply with the FCC Tuner mandate and Cable Plug and Play Agreement. They also provide seamless migration for the bidirectional cable specifications and requirements."


The NXT2003 can demodulate VSB signals for over-the-air DTV reception as well as the QAM signals used for digital cable. It also includes a QPSK receiver for receiving the Forward Data Channel, which is required for unidirectional cable operation. The NXT2005 adds the ability to handle bi-directional cable reception and transmission formats.