Specialist chip designer, MSU Corp showed off a pre-production version of its Slipstream Internet Box to analysts in New York last week and outlined its future strategy, supported by major partner Zilog Inc. Zilog signed a development and marketing agreement with MSU for its Internet Service Processor chip at the end of last month, and says it plans to combine the MSU technology with its own chips and peripheral equipment in the consumer television, infra-red remote and set-top controller markets. The intent is to produce consumer Internet access devices for under $300 that replace the need for a computer altogether, or which can be built into existing television sets. The prototype was shown working with a Zilog-designed remote control unit for Internet surfers, though Zilog also has an infra-red remote keyboard for those who want to use electronic mail or other computer functions through their television sets. The MSU approach claims a number of advantages over technology used by rivals such as Palo-Alto-based WebTV Networks Inc, which was due to launch its service in San Francisco yesterday, and whose set-top boxes are being produced by Sony Electronics Inc and Philips Consumer Electronics Inc. One is the flicker-free graphics produced by MSU’s three-dimensional graphics engine that works with PAL and NTSC television standards. Another is the full parallel printer port that enables personal computer peripherals such as printers and Iomega Corp Zip storage drives to be plugged into the box. MSU also reckons its custom ASIC chip, at base a signal processor using Very long Instruction Word techniques, is both faster and cheaper than competing offerings, and says its boxes require less than 1Mb memory for the operating system, and 2Mb for video storage, half the usual minima. With no operating system compatibility problems to worry about, Zilog reckons the lowest-cost box will win. Zilog says it is talking to another of its set-top box partners, Belmont, California-based Diba Inc, about using MSU’s technology. Separately, MSU has a manufacturing deal in place with Mitec International Corp of Taipei for volume fabrication, along with a $34m OEM deal from Fairfield, Ohio-based Vision Link Telecommunications Inc and another from American Interactive Media Inc of Medford, New Jersey. Others are in the pipeline, the company says. MSU, which floated on NASDAQ last year, is bullish about its revenue prospects.
