Junko Yoshida, EETimes
5/20/2011 9:24 AM EDT
NEW YORK – As Taiwanese IC suppliers like MediaTek and Mstar continue to gobble up growing chip demand among China’s consumer electronics OEMs and ODMs, the set-top box and digital TV businesses don’t exactly look exciting (or lucrative) to the semiconductor market segment any longer – at least to most chip suppliers in the West.
Look no further than struggling financials of Trident Microsystems and Zoran Corp. in recent quarters.
But of course, for Broadcom, this is a very different story. Geneva-based STMicroelectronics, keeping up its competitive position against Broadcom, also sees an upside for digital TV – including Interne-connected TVs and 3-D TVs.