Intel to Delay Product for High-Definition TVs
In the latest of a series of product delays, Intel Corp. has postponed the launch of a video display chip it had previously planned to introduce by year end, putting off a showdown with Texas Instruments Inc. in the fast-growing market for high-definition television displays.
Intel spokeswoman Laura Anderson said on Monday that the world's largest chip maker had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product, called liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS. She declined to specify a new date for releasing the product.
The product delay was not caused by technical problems, Intel's Anderson said.
It nonetheless adds to a string of missed deadlines by the chip supplier, whose timelines for product roll-outs are relied upon by electronics makers around the world. A series of delays of notebook and desktop computer chips led Chief Executive Craig Barrett to send a terse letter to Intel's 80,000 workers last month.
LCoS is one of three competing technologies for large-screen rear projection televisions, which are thinner than standard cathode-ray tube sets and generally less expensive than sleek plasma-based television sets that have become a must-have gadget among some technology enthusiasts.
An estimated 1.3 million rear-projection sets were sold last year, and another 2.7 million sets are expected to be sold this year, according to Insight Media, which publishes a newsletter on microdisplays.
Today, that market is mostly shared by Texas Instruments, which has turned its Digital Light Processing technology into a major venture, and Japan's Sony Corp., which has taken a strong market position with liquid crystal-based rear-projection sets.
Intel was to be the third major entrant, adopting a less market-tested technology that combines a liquid crystal panel with a silicon-based microchip. Intel saw in LCoS a way to improve picture quality in the same manner that it increases the speed of its computer chips.
At a consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas in January, Intel announced that it would have products out by the end of the year, and that display manufacturers were already working with its prototypes.
Intel appears to have erred by focusing its product plans on one-megapixel displays, which have one million individual picture points, or pixels, when TV set makers were eager for products that can accommodate two megapixels, said Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media, the publisher of newsletter Microdisplay Report.
"This strategic decision is just an acknowledgment of the reality of the LCoS market right now, and the reality is that what customers want is next-generation technology out of LCoS," Chinnock said
In the latest of a series of product delays, Intel Corp. has postponed the launch of a video display chip it had previously planned to introduce by year end, putting off a showdown with Texas Instruments Inc. in the fast-growing market for high-definition television displays.
Intel spokeswoman Laura Anderson said on Monday that the world's largest chip maker had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product, called liquid crystal on silicon, or LCoS. She declined to specify a new date for releasing the product.
The product delay was not caused by technical problems, Intel's Anderson said.
It nonetheless adds to a string of missed deadlines by the chip supplier, whose timelines for product roll-outs are relied upon by electronics makers around the world. A series of delays of notebook and desktop computer chips led Chief Executive Craig Barrett to send a terse letter to Intel's 80,000 workers last month.
LCoS is one of three competing technologies for large-screen rear projection televisions, which are thinner than standard cathode-ray tube sets and generally less expensive than sleek plasma-based television sets that have become a must-have gadget among some technology enthusiasts.
An estimated 1.3 million rear-projection sets were sold last year, and another 2.7 million sets are expected to be sold this year, according to Insight Media, which publishes a newsletter on microdisplays.
Today, that market is mostly shared by Texas Instruments, which has turned its Digital Light Processing technology into a major venture, and Japan's Sony Corp., which has taken a strong market position with liquid crystal-based rear-projection sets.
Intel was to be the third major entrant, adopting a less market-tested technology that combines a liquid crystal panel with a silicon-based microchip. Intel saw in LCoS a way to improve picture quality in the same manner that it increases the speed of its computer chips.
At a consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas in January, Intel announced that it would have products out by the end of the year, and that display manufacturers were already working with its prototypes.
Intel appears to have erred by focusing its product plans on one-megapixel displays, which have one million individual picture points, or pixels, when TV set makers were eager for products that can accommodate two megapixels, said Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media, the publisher of newsletter Microdisplay Report.
"This strategic decision is just an acknowledgment of the reality of the LCoS market right now, and the reality is that what customers want is next-generation technology out of LCoS," Chinnock said