Intel announces 45nm SoC for internet TV

It supports internet and broadcast applications on one chip and is the newest SoC in a range of processors to bring internet content to digital TVs, DVD players and advanced set top boxes. According to Intel, it supports internet and broadcast applications on one chip and has the processing power and audio/video components necessary to run rich media applications such as 3D graphics. Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Digital Home Group, said: "Traditional broadcast networks are quickly shifting from a linear model to a multistream, internet optimised model to offer consumers digital entertainment that compliments the TV such as social networking, 3D gaming and streaming video. At the centre of the TV evolution is the CE4100 media processor, a new architecture that meets the critical requirements for connected consumer electronics devices." Companies such as BBC, Adobe Systems, CBS and Cisco have already shown interest and other companies are working with Intel to advance content, services and infrastructure for connected devices. In particular, Adobe Flash is an important enabling technology, with Intel working to port Adobe Flash Player 10 to the family of CE media processors. This helps optimise the playback of graphics and will enable a wide range of Flash based content - such as Youtube videos - on televisions. Intel says the CE4100 processor can deliver speeds up to 1.2GHz while offering low power and a small footprint. It is backward compatible with the Intel media processor CE3100 and features a display processing engine to support high definition picture quality as well as supporting hardware decode of up to two 1080p video streams and advanced 3D graphics and audio standards. Additional features include hardware decode for MPEG4 video, which is ready for DivX Home Theatre 3.0 certification, an integrated nand Flash controller, support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory and 512K L2 cache.