Toshiba Launches Turnkey Digital TV Platform Addressing the Requirements of the Global Marketplace

Unified TV Platform Supports Different Standards and Markets so Manufacturers Can Quickly Deliver New DTVs to Markets Around the World

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed leader that collaborates with technology companies to create breakthrough designs, today unveiled its unified platform solution for the global digital television (DTV) market. The Toshiba Customizable Universal DTV Platform (CUDP) is a turnkey solution for high-definition DTV and includes Toshiba’s ready-to-manufacture hardware and production software that can be localized to support different broadcast standards and market requirements. The Toshiba CUDP, available now from TAEC, lets TV manufacturers quickly bring new high-definition DTV solutions to market with minimal resources and still meet the unique requirements of customers serving markets throughout the world.

The Toshiba CUDP offers a complete solution for DTV and allows the TV industry to use Toshiba chips from the same family (with geographic variations) and localized Toshiba software to address worldwide standards. The CUDP is currently available for customers serving the North American markets, with Toshiba’s TC90413XBG HDTV system-on-chip (SoC), the company’s newest chip optimized for the ATSC/NTSC format (see today’s related announcement), serving as the backbone of the platform. Other implementations of the Toshiba CUDP targeting customers in additional geographic regions will follow.

“The CUDP continues Toshiba’s overarching strategy to offer unified platform solutions for the high-definition digital TV market,” said Shardul Kazi, Technology Executive and vice president of the ASSP Business Unit at TAEC. “With today’s announcement, we are addressing the fast growing and fast changing ATSC LCD TV market, which continually needs new products with ever increasing functionality. Toshiba’s worldwide platform strategy provides an effective tool for TV manufacturers to quickly bring new products to market to help meet these demands.”

The CUDP allows for tuning, demodulation, decoding and display of ATSC, NTSC and Clear QAM broadcasts. In addition, the platform can process and display analog or digital video via composite, S-Video, Component, D-Sub or HDMI interfaces. The CUDP supports both WXGA and 1080p high-definition LCD TVs.

Despite being a highly integrated, platform-level design solution, the CUDP enables customization of many features like the user interface, program information, LCD panel, remote control functions and many others so TV manufacturers can provide their own value-added features to differentiate their products from the competition. Moreover, this platform brings features that previously were only available in high-end TVs to the value-priced TV segment.