Texas Instruments revs up TV, theater
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
TI, the third-biggest chipmaker in the world, is aggressively working with TV manufacturers, bureaucrats, producers and movie theaters to promote high-definition programming and technology, with a particular emphasis on dropping the cost of HDTV sets and building digital cinemas.
"We're working with our customers to move the price (of HDTV sets) to $1,000," Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton said in a meeting with reporters at the tail end of the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "This is the year of HDTV."
TI's interest in high-definition entertainment stems from its digital light processors (DLPs), a line of chips used in rear-projection TVs and projectors. In DLPs, transistors manipulate thousands of tiny mirrors to create an image that then appears on-screen (there are HD DLP TVs and DLP TVs for regular programming).
