March 16, 2004

By: Matt Arp
Website: http://www.1st-in-hdtv.com

Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) develops new system LSI

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., best known for its Panasonic brand products, today announced development of the MN2WS0010, a new system LSI for digital HDTV (high definition television) broadcast receivers that accomplishes all back-end processing functions in a single chip. It can also be configured to support a range of standards, including digital broadcasting worldwide and MPEG-4 video playback, simply by changing the processor software. As high-performance and low-cost digital television sets become available in the years ahead, digital receivers for both satellite and terrestrial broadcasts are expected to grow in popularity.

The new LSI incorporates 0.13 ¥ìm CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) process technology with 6-layer copper wiring. Together with Matsushita's process technology, the company's AV system, LSI, and core technologies make it possible to fit 35 million transistors, including a 32-bit microprocessor (AM34), a transport decoder, and a HD-AV decoder, onto a single chip. The result is a single-chip solution that accomplishes all back-end processing requirements for digital broadcast receivers.

Previously, digital receivers for satellite broadcasts have required a large number of LSIs and discrete components, however the new LSI reduces the number of devices and components needed for digital broadcast receivers and reduces the device mounting area by half compared with the Matsushita's previous models.

Author Notes:

Matt Arp contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.1st-in-hdtv.com.  Great information on high definition, plasma, projection, LCD TV's plus home theaters and more.