French chip manufacturer STMicroelectronics is claiming a first with its new digital video disk (DVD) decoder chip, the STi5505. The new chip combines a CPU core with hardwired video and audio decoders and a video digital to analog converter (DAC), functionality that the company says previously required a four chip board. The processor/controller which the chip is based around is a 32 bit ST20 RISC processor. The decoders are an MPEG-2 ML@MP video decoder and an audio decoder that supports DVD audio standards such as Dolby Digital and 3D Surround. The chip also has a PAL/NTSC encoder and limited 8-bit graphics capabilities. The 0.35 micron process chip is sampling now and will available for less than $30 when it goes into volume production in the fourth quarter of this year. A reference design platform with a DVD board and a software developers toolkit is also available.
