The tiny startup BLX IC Design Corp. has persuaded a few of China's top consumer electronics manufacturers to give its 32-bit embedded processor a try. Next year, expect to see its technology used in set-top boxes, "smart" TVs, digital video recorders and thin-client PCs.

It's been a real slog, however, for the newcomer to get anyone to trust it, spurring the firm to offer substantial support services at both the chip and system level. It's a challenge that is spreading BLX's engineering resources thin, and limiting projects to about three. So the company is choosing carefully.

"We have to pick the biggest players with the highest volume projections," said chief executive David Shen. "Limited resources is one of the reasons we are not a pure IP provider."

After three years of work, BLX introduced the 266-MHz standard cell CPU last year. The company is a spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was able to leverage its research teams for Godson's development. It is doing the same with the next- generation Godson CPU.

But after going to market, Shen said he realized that designing the CPU was only a small part of the battle. "Our brand name is new, the company is small, so it was not easy for people to have confidence in us. This is a problem," Shen said.

So far, the company has several reference designs, and has even done specific form factors for companies to test out, as well as small batch production in order to coordinate a supply chain around the products.

It seems the most likely test beds will be set tops and TVs. Currently, Shen's team is working with a large TV supplier that wants to devise its own chip for "smart" TVs, which would act not only as a TV, but as a simple game console, Web surfer and platform for educational software.

"TV is still the central source for gathering information in China, so there is a lot of opportunity there," Shen said. "We don't want to make the TV into a PC or a high-end game console. We just want to make it a little bit smarter, but still affordable."

Shen said the unidentified company he is working with would introduce an entry-level TV, with some Web surfing and third-party software capability, toward the end of 2004. It will cost about $185. Mid and high-end TVs would range from $300 to $500 and more.

By: DocMemory
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