Strategic consideration for the design of digital TV system-on-chip products

The delivery channels for digital TV broadcasting have been diversified: terrestrial, cable, satellite, beyond 3G cellular band and now over the internet. On the physical dimension, popularity of larger screen flat TV's is rapidly growing, while mobile TV technology brought TV viewing to cell phones with QVGA screens. The flexibility of when to watch programs has been greatly enhanced by Personal Video Recorder (PVR) technology and set-top boxes with push technology services. And new IPTV VOD services offer more flexibility to consumers when and what to watch. Large screen flat TV's are also used for Home Theater environments with full HD contents from discs. All these developments have occurred within just a few years, and the task of developing System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for the various future applications are very challenging. This paper explores strategic considerations chip developers have to employ to create competitive Digital TV SoC technology and products.