October 21, 2004

TV Mobile Phone

Texas Instruments has unveiled a chip that will allow cell phones to receive digital television broadcasts over a wireless network. Mobile phones have made the push into music, video games and photography, and the new chip from TI will combine the functions of a TV tuner, signal demodulator and channel decoder in a single device to bring TV to phones. The chip is expected to display as many as 30 frames per second, twice the rate that some of the best phones today display video clips. TI plans to begin sampling the chip in 2006 and envisions commercial deployment in handsets in 2007. The company says it is currently conducting field trials in the United States, Europe and Japan.