IDT Readies 3D-Capable Frame Rate Conversion ICs

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) will ship its first 3D-capable frame rate conversion ICs this fall, moving to expand its consumer business to compete with Broadcom, Trident and others, Ji Park, vice president and general manager of the video and display business, told us.

The VHD1200 chip will target 120 Hz and the VHD2400 240 Hz displays, building on technology IDT acquired nearly two years ago in buying Silicon Optix’s video processor business. The ICs, priced at $25 and $35 in volumes on 10,000 units, will target mid-to-high-end front projectors and flat-panel TVs, combining motion compensation with resolution enhancement. AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries is expected to start volume production this fall of the chips, using a 55-nanometer process, Park said. The first CE products containing them are expected to ship in early 2011, he said.

"The whole display industry is looking for differentiation and how to get addition premiums,” Park said. “That may play strongly for us, and as 3D comes around and you get into higher resolutions, it brings us into a better light in terms of how we can play in this space.”

IDT’s consumer business currently accounts for 15 percent of its annual revenue, and the goal is to increase that by developing frame rate conversion and other ICs for 4Kx2K, 21:9 and other displays, Park said. Much of the development will be handled by Silicon Optix ASIC and algorithm engineers who joined IDT as part of the acquisition. The new ICs are designed to provide full detail from a high range of motion without judder on fast camera pans and small, fast-moving images. The chips can process side-by-side and frame sequential 3D content, Park said.

"We have wide, multi-directional detection range,” Park said. And while the VHD2400 and VHD1200 won’t eliminate halos that sometimes appear around moving objects “because that is the nature of the beast we're in” they “will be minimized to the best of the chip’s ability,” Park said. With its ties to IDT, the video business will benefit as the company makes IP investments to make it “a player” in the video processing category, Park said.

The new chips come as IDT moves to consolidate and outsource production. The company is expected to close its Oregon factory by 2012 as it shifts manufacturing to TSMC, GlobalFoundries and others. Eight-inch wafers produced at a 245,000-square-foot Hillsboro, Ore., plant represented 40 percent of the company’s fiscal 2009 revenue, while third party factories were 60 percent, the company said. IDT also is closing a 37,000-square-foot test facility in Singapore as it shifts the operation to an existing 145,000-square-foot facility in Malaysia.