Does Strong Demand for 3DTV Favor FPGAs or ASICs?
Demand for 3DTV sets is outpacing expectations according to published reports from analysts and an interview with Panasonic executive Laurent Abadie.
Abadie, who is Panasonics' Director of Corporate Management for Europe, told Reuters last week that the demand for 3DTV sets like those made by Panasonic and chief competitors Samsung, LG, and Sony was three or four times what the companies had expected.
In April, Generator Research had estimated that total demand for 3DTVs would reach about 3.1 million units in 2010, but if actual demand is a multiple of that the market might be as much as 6 percent of all television sales.
Demand for 3DTV sets is outpacing expectations according to published reports from analysts and an interview with Panasonic executive Laurent Abadie.
Abadie, who is Panasonics' Director of Corporate Management for Europe, told Reuters last week that the demand for 3DTV sets like those made by Panasonic and chief competitors Samsung, LG, and Sony was three or four times what the companies had expected.
In April, Generator Research had estimated that total demand for 3DTVs would reach about 3.1 million units in 2010, but if actual demand is a multiple of that the market might be as much as 6 percent of all television sales.
Faster Than Expected Design Cycles
At the recent IBC tradeshow, Xilinx suggested that if design and development engineers were going to keep up with demand for 3DTVs, especially so called “without glasses” versions, they would need to rely on FPGAs rather than ASICs in their designs.
“With the success of 3D movies such as 'Avatar' and the push for ever higher resolution on consumer display devices such as projectors and TVs, a company that decided on a solution that relied on a custom or even off-the-shelf chip approach a year ago would have missed the market completely,” said Dean Westman, vice president, Communications Business at Xilinx. “FPGAs allow a fast and flexible product design cycle when combined with the IP, reference designs and other components of the Xilinx design platforms for the broadcast equipment industry, freeing designers to focus on product differentiation and innovation.”
Westman's comments were part of an announcement introducing his company's new development platform aimed at helping electrical engineers rapidly develop new 3D and HD television solutions. The Spartan-6 FPGA Broadcast Connectivity Kit was developed in conjunction with Tokyo Electron Devices, and according to Xilinx it provides comprehensive development support for several interfaces, a new processing engine IP core, and other features that make it, perhaps, the most effective platform to date.
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