Intel Eyeing Other OEMs to Deploy Its Google TV Chip

Intel is “putting all our energy” into “working with Google on enabling” Sony and Logitech TV products based on the Android operating system (CED May 21 p5) to be sold at retail this year, Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager for Intel’s Digital Home Group, said on a phone and Internet briefing for investors Friday. But he said, “We are also very deeply engaged with many other major CE OEMs, so you could expect there to be many additional CE products -- TVs, set-top boxes, media players -- hitting the retail shelves in spring of 2011.” He declined to name other OEMs, citing “very strict confidentiality” deals, but said Intel is “definitely putting a huge amount of energy to scale this out very, very rapidly."

All the Google TV products in question will use Intel’s CE4100 system-on-a-chip (SoC), code-named “Sodaville,” that’s based on its Atom microprocessor’s core, Kim said. CE4100 “is a highly integrated single-chip SoC” offering features that also include 3D graphics, he said. “The whole point of SoC is to put lots of powerful functions into a single silicon die so that you achieve a very, very cost-effective position,” he said.

The “timing is right” for this Internet TV solution, Kim said. “When you look at consumers’ usage behavior today, a large number of consumers” have a laptop or smartphone “next to them while they are watching TV,” so they can talk with friends or look up or share something online, he said. The number of consumers doing this is growing, so it’s not “some small niche phenomenon,” but “a broad-based consumer phenomenon,” he said. The method being used by these consumers now, however, is “not ideal -- in many ways it is very expensive, because you have to have all these devices; it is cumbersome.” He predicted the “consumer uptake will be very, very fast” for the Google TV platform.

Having “major household CE brands” like Sony, Logitech and Best Buy will only help to introduce such a new usage model to the public, Kim said. Best Buy “joined us and committed their intention to establish a Smart TV category retail-selling proposition and provide a strong retail sales support, as well as customer engagement and service support to the

customers,” he said. Satellite provider DISH is also backing the platform. But Kim said, “We are engaged with a number of other major TV operators outside of DISH that are very, very aggressively building their next-generation set-top box based on our platform."

Sony, Intel and Logitech disclosed at Google’s annual developers conference last week that they're taking the Android operating system to TVs. The Google software will initially run a standalone Sony TV set and there will also be a “set top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray Disc drive,” Sony said. Pricing and specific ship dates weren’t disclosed. Logitech said it will introduce a companion box that “brings Google TV to existing HDTV home entertainment systems, easily integrating with any brand of HDTV and set-top box.” The box will incorporate Logitech’s Harmony remote control technology, and will include a controller that combines keyboard and remote control capabilities, it said. The peripheral maker also plans to introduce an HDTV camera and video chat for Google TV, along with “additional choices for navigation and control, including apps to turn a smartphone into an advanced controller for Google TV and home-entertainment systems,” it said.