Can Silicon Image extend its HDMI success to handsets?

Junko Yoshida, EE Times
(07/14/2008 10:00 AM EDT)
 
Just when you thought the industry had settled on which digital interface to use where—HDMI for HDTV, USB for cameras and phones—HDMI chip leader Silicon Image Inc. is looking to upend the conventional wisdom.

In an ambitious move to extend its HDMI dominance to the mobile world, Silicon Image today will announce a dual-mode, HDMI/MHL solution that promises to reduce the bill of materials, power consumption and time-to-market for interfacing handsets to digital TVs. The company is pushing its proprietary MHL (mobile high-definition link) interface as a smaller-form-factor option to HDMI.

MHL was developed to ease mobile devices' digital TV connectivity, offering a "reduction in I/O, cable and connector size," according to a Silicon Image statement.

MHL promises to bring the number of system-on-chip (SoC) audio/video I/Os down to five from the 19 currently needed for HDMI.

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