Intel gets into digital TV market

JOHN MARKOFF at the New York Times is predicting what when Paul Otellini, Intel's president, takes the floor at the forthcoming Consumer Electronics Show, he will stagger the world by announcing its first digital TV chip.

According to Markoff, Otellini will show off a chip marrying liquid crystal to silicon. Intel is going head to head against the US titan Texas Instruments.

He writes that the Chipzilla approach is to make "vast arrays of tiny electronic shutters" which change the characteristics of reflected light. The chips will be used to make huge TVs using back end technology much cheaper than plasma or ordinary LCD screens, Markoff writes, here. µ