Although chips are not exactly the most exciting things ever (well, at least as far as their looks are concerned), these tiny components are extremely useful, since they enable all sorts of functions that were previously unavailable, at the same time helping in cutting production costs. And this is exactly the case with the latest development from NXP and TSMC, which have announced the industry's first single-chip 45nm global LCD TV platform, TV550.

Featuring NXP's PNX85500 processor and being built on TSMC's 45nm Low Power (LP) process technology, the NXP TV550 digital TV platform is a production-ready reference design that reduces development times with a major step forward in functional integration for system cost down. The newly introduced DTV platform allows TV viewers to enjoy HD digital content and Internet access with a very good level, unparalleled picture quality.

The TSMC 45 LP cost-competitive process offers designers up to twice the density of 65nm with significant low power and up to 40% smaller die size. Compared with TSMC 40G technology, the 45LP requires less photo masks and is ideal for products demanding excellent cost performance ratio.

"Digital switchover and high definition content are the major demands for the TV industry," said Lou Schreurs, business line TV general manager, NXP Semiconductors. "With TSMC's valuable experience in advanced CMOS technologies and NXP's TV system design expertise, we are able to deliver these high end features with a reduced bill-of-materials. Our customers are highly impressed with TV550's superb picture quality and its capability to handle the complex global digital standards with a single platform."

Of course, we're quite anxiously waiting to see just how soon these components will make their way into real-life products, but given the fact that they might bring about some price drops, we certainly hope that it's sooner rather than later.


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