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TV chip production begins
24/1/2005 14:54

Xue Wen/Shanghai Daily news

Fudan University has begun mass production of China's first domestically made digital TV chip, the school announced over the weekend.
Fudan said the chip, dubbed CDTV-1, is China's only commercially viable digital TV chip used in a set-top box to receive digital broadcasting signals.
It has placed orders with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation to manufacture the chip.
"Each company will manufacture 10,000 chips for us at the beginning," said Zhou Dian, president of Fudan's School of Microelectronics.
Zhou said that a dozen domestic electronics makers, including Changhong, TCL, Skyworth and Haier, have integrated the new chip into their products.
Henan Province is using the new technology to offer mobile TV programs, and at least 10 other localities including Guangzhou of Guangdong Province, and Tianjin, have reported success in trial operations, according to Zhou.
The mass production of the chip, which is based on the DMB-T standard proposed by Beijing's Tsinghua University, has intensified the competition between Tsinghua and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the two major contenders to design China's digital TV broadcasting standard.
Although the central government has said that the final standard will be a combined result of the three proposals from Tsinghua, Jiao Tong and the research arm under the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV, industry experts suggest the three standards, which are based on totally different technologies, can't be incorporated.
Jiao Tong University has developed its standard based on the European standard and has operated pilots in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai during the past few years.
Yang Zhixing, director of Tsinghua University's Digital TV Transmission Technology R&D Center, said the national standard is expected to be issued before the Chinese Lunar New Year on February 9.
China was scheduled to announce its national standard last year, but pushed the deadline back for unidentified reasons.