Philips Semiconductors has launched the Ultimate One Chip Television, the world's first single device containing the functionality of a complete television system. It provides manufacturers with a truly global component, allowing a single chassis design to address all world markets and all sizes of television in the fiercely competitive small and medium sized analog TV set market.

"The Ultimate One Chip Television, through its innovative combination of technologies, cuts manufacturers' costs in three ways," said Mark Samuel, International Product Manager at Philips Semiconductors. "It reduces dramatically the cost of components, it cuts the time for design and manufacture and allows the same chassis design to be used for all markets."

The Ultimate One Chip Television series (part numbers TDA 935X/6X/8X) is the third generation of integrated television from Philips Semiconductors. Since the pioneering One Chip Television was introduced in 1992, Philips Semiconductors has shipped over 200 million devices.

Each Ultimate One Chip Television combines both analog (BiMOS) and digital (CMOS) circuitry in a single package to implement a TV signal processor, a closed caption decoder and a micro controller core with an extended 80C51 instruction set. The TV signal processor provides complete coverage of all international standards (PAL/NTSC and SECAM) and the series implements all teletext standards.

Close integration significantly reduces the peripheral component count: in a typical design 120 fewer resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors are required. The reduced component count simplifies design and can enable the use of one single circuit board in the set, instead of the two currently required.

The Ultimate One Chip Television is self aligning, cutting, even further, manufacturing time already reduced by the lower board and component count.

Philips Semiconductors supplies a suite of software to speed implementation of teletext and on screen display. Completed software is stored in one time programmable memory, using Philips Semiconductors' advanced Walker cell technology. This increases the speed with which Philips Semiconductors can supply the manufacturer, and reduces still further time to market.

The first versions of the One Chip Television have been universally adopted because of the dramatic cost savings for manufacturers and the large reduction in the time to market for a new product. The skill sets of the OEM design engineers can also concentrate on the layouts and mechanics of efficient production rather than TV signal processing and display matters. That the era of DTV is upon us does not reduce the demand for analog receivers in the short term, especially those receivers that can be categorized as having "small" and "medium" screen sizes. This new series of the product reduces the external component count and the complete receiver can be built on a single circuit board if the mechanical design of the receiver housing allows for it.