MANHASSET, N.Y. — A decade ago, digital ICs like demodulation, audio/video decompression ICs were the make-or-break components for consumer electronics companies seeking to launch the transition to the digital home.

Today, analog and mixed signal chips--video encoders and HDMI connectivity ICs--are the components that determine many digital consumer systems' time to market.

This theory is what Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) is banking on, and it seems to be succeeding, if the company's recent design wins with Yamaha and Hitachi are any indication.

ADI said Wednesday (June 11) that Yamaha has installed into its new audio video receivers ADI's Blackfin processor, and ADI's three Advantiv advanced television ICs developed to enable video and HDMI connectivity.

ADI also recently announced that Hitachi's HD wireless video hub launched in Japan, by using Tzero's UWB connectivity silicon, has deployed ADI's wireless HDMI reference design. The reference design has allowed multiple entertainment HD sources to be connected wirelessly to an ultra-slim Hitachi HDTV unit called Wooo UT HDTV.

Enabling Yamaha

Doug Bartow, strategic marketing manager of ADI's advanced television segment, said, "Yamaha came to ADI, when they decided to develop AV receivers with unbelievable functionality at a very low cost."

ADI claimed to have offered Yamaha three things: meeting Yamaha's cost goals; offering HDMI and HDCP compliances; and enabling low latencies for channel changes and input selections.

Bartow called the collaboration with Yamaha "a ground-breaking undertaking" that has involved ADI engineering teams at five different sites.

And that probably isn't an overstatement.

Mark Kirstein, president & co-founder of MultiMedia Intelligence, observed that such an AV home theatre box as that of Yamaha's is in effect a "networked device." The number of design challenges embodied in such a device include: "achieving the multiple levels of interoperability, and increasing intelligence in the box at a cost-competitive price."

ADI helped Yamaha reduce system cost by offering a single Blackfin DSP, replacing three microprocessors that used to drive a home theatre box.

Further, ADI integrated software drivers for three Advantiv ICs into the Blackfin system software package. "ADI developed audio decode and HDMI repeater software drivers," said Bartow, "while Yamaha developed a user interface." Such ADI-developed software are: Dolby Digital decoder, DTS decoding and the standards-compliant HDMI repeater functionality with HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection).

Unlike Broadcom or STMicroelectronics, ADI has never had much presence in the digital IC market for digital TVs or cable/satellite set-tops.

Bartow, calling the digital IC market consisting of demodulator, MPEG video, and image scaling ICs "already very crowded and very much commoditized," said that ADI is focused on "analog processing and all the output" that must be integrated in digital box design.