Trident Bridges The Gap Between Analog And HDTV With A Single Chip

Trident Microsystems announces the world's first single-chip digital television video processor, the DPTV, catapulting Trident into a new and exciting product market with significant business opportunities. This innovative solution for the digital television marketplace brings to life Trident's extensive knowledge of digital video and convincingly demonstrates the company's ability to leverage it's advanced digital video imaging and graphics technologies into new emerging markets.According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) [formerly the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association (CEMA)], there are approximately 250 million television sets in the U.S. and 600 million worldwide. It is estimated that market penetration by high definition television (HDTV) sets will only reach 30 percent of the total television marketplace by the year 2006. This is due primarily to the excessively high cost of available HDTV products, which place them out of the affordable reach of most consumers.Trident's industry first, revolutionary single-chip DPTV incorporates progressive scan and high refresh rate into traditional television technology making possible the implementation of a low cost digital television set delivering the highest levels of digital video quality in a Standard Definition Television (SDTV) format. It is anticipated that the single-chip DPTV will have a major impact on the television and Internet appliance video display industries by addressing a lucrative market niche that bridges the gap between conventional analog television and HDTV.""Trident's DPTV dramatically fuels the television industry's shift to a new paradigm, accelerating the transition from conventional analog television to the digital television era,"" stated Frank Lin, Trident's Chairman and CEO. ""This industry transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting is anticipated to be in full swing over the next decade creating tremendous opportunities for companies offering video imaging VLSI products. Over the next five years it is estimated that the digital television market will consume in excess of 250 million units of digital television processors such as Trident's DPTV,"" continued Frank Lin. ""Our DPTV single chip solution uses digital processing technologies and a patent pending de-interlacing algorithm which delivers a resolution double that of conventional analog television at minimal additional cost.""The DPTV DX is priced at $50, DPTV HX is priced at $40 and DPTV iX at $35 in 10K quantities. DPTV availability is anticipated in the first quarter of calendar 2000.

For more information, contact Trident at http://www.tridentmicro.com.