Intel Cancels LCOS Development

kfstark writes "It looks like the sub $2000 42" flat panel TV has been pushed back for a while. Intel has announced they are cancelling their Liquid Crystal on Silicon development. Guess I'll have to pick out a different gift for for the umm... kids." Earlier we reported their plans to delay their launch of the LCOS chips. Sadly, now it would seem they've been scrapped altogether.

What's up with Intel?

[jmcmunn]

They cancel their 4Ghz chips...and now LCOS? Are they hurting for money, or did they just make a couple of bad choices lately that has led to them deciding to end R&D on some projects?

Or is there something really awesome coming out that they are diverting funds to...doubt it.

In other words ....

[binaryDigit]

"What we've decided is that for the investment that's required and the returns we would get and the timeline to get to those returns, that it doesn't make sense for us to pursue this particular technology," Intel spokesman Bill Calder said.

Intel initially planned to deliver chips to TV makers in the second half of this year. But in August, the first signs of trouble surfaced, as Intel indefinitely postponed the project, saying the company had decided to improve picture quality before introducing the product.

So basically they're saying that they thought they could bust into market because their so awesome at making anything made of silicon. They got their first samples done and they sucked compared to their competitors who haven't exactly been sitting around. Then they realized that hey, it's gonna take a lot of money to have something competitive and just how big is the market for $2000 tv's anyway, esp considering how technologically fickle it is at the moment (almost any technology can assert itself during any given generation). Then they figured, why bother.

I am curious as to what exactly the trouble is.

[Anonymous Coward]

With the way the technology was headed, they must have hit some real big show stoppers to not finish off developing a technology they've sunk so much money into, and potentially end up forever outside a HUGE market.

Time to clean house...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time to get some new blood into the company. I think you'll see some "cleaning of house" in Q1 2005.

I'm surprised people are not talking about it.

Re:Why a TV?

[IvanD]

The TV is way cooler!! But that is not the point, the TV has already the "screen" and better definition, resolution and if you set the brigth to the highest... you don't have to be worry of burning the "bulb".

Intel Falling Apart

[Bruha]

It seems lately Intel has been met face on with many failures. Lately I've been keeping my eyes on Ibm's power developments and AMD's work also in how they push CPU power without the Mhz factor. However while Intel produces a lot of chips you have to remember AMD is one of the largest chip makers in the world and their CPU business is only a small fraction of that. Maybe AMD will pick up where Intel gave up.

Cancelation may be Redirection

[hcob$]

I've been reading up on some of the "up and coming" display technologies, and I have a theory!

The new devices that are coming out are "Organic LEDs." [audioholics.com] These devices are looking to offer brighter displays, no backlighting required, even FLEXIBLE TV! Lets just say that with a screen thickness as small as 1mm (yes that's millimetres) I'll wait for that 42" TV you can hang on the wall like a picutre(and not need a forklift/specialty anchorage).

Someone smart at Intel

[samael]

Sounds like there's been a shift in priorities at Intel recently. Someone high up's insisted that all projects be analysed to see if they wil actual be profitable and a few are being canned because they aren't worthwhile.

Almost certainly a good thing - so long as they're still investing heavily in R&D.

Plenty of options. LCOS not missed.

[LeiGong]

The option for ~$2k, 42" HDTVs are still out there. The fact of the matter is Intel would have been one of the last companies to stand by the LCOS technology. Pretty much every TV company has abandoned it for LCD or DLP technology. I was recently in the market for HDTVs and went through looking at all the sub-$3k ones. I did my research and was very eager to check out how LCOS stacked up against the competition. A lot of articles made it sound like the holy grail of HD quality... Surprisingly, the LCOS TVs by Phillip looked the worst and I was informed by the sales guy at Tweeters that Phillips is discontinue selling LCOS due to technical and quality issues. And that was the only LCOS TV they carried among the over 2 dozen big screens. The LCD projection (not LCD flat panel) by Sony and DLPs by Samsung were much much better quality for almost the same or less price. I personally think DLP projection is now the way to go and so many new manufacturers are jumping in that LCOS will not be missed.

Re:Reality Meet Intel.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, P4 was hardly a "mistake" or "crap". Except for the very beginning, it completely dominated the Athlon line in almost all applications. It took AMD one whole new architecture (A64) to catch up.

Since then, it's only been recently (starting a couple months after Prescot release, with Intel not being able to ramp clock speeds as intended, despite the ridiculous power-consuming and heat-generating changes made) that the A64 has been decidingly kicking its ass in every application but media encoding (and Intel's coming pretty close to losing that, too).

That said, I agree, it's time for Intel to shift to an IPC-improving strategy, based on the P-M. Both IPC and clockrate are important, but we're getting to the point where further clockrate scaling will take us to a point where sending a signal to different parts of the chip requires a different number of clock cycles (at 4GHz, even at light speed a signal can only travel 7.5cm in once clock, at 10GHz, it's 3cm), and that will lead to a host of architectural problems I don't think any of the big chip companies are ready for.

Re:What's up with Intel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing ran this spreadsheet and they saw all this expense in R&D - specifically engineering salaries.

So they dumped all their high-paid senior engineers and recruited a whole bunch on the H1-B program from countries where engineers are used to working for less than the US minimum wage.

Hey - an engineer is an engineer right?

Guess what's happening now?

**From an unemployed US engineer - the Feds say that I don't exist and we need to IMPORT talent, funny all the guys I meet at the market in the afternoons**