ARM chips coming to LG TVs

June 23, 2009 | 14:48

Tags: #mali #tv #web-browser #webtv

Companies: #arm #lg-electronics

With more and more manufacturers looking to use ARM's range of low-voltage RISC processors, the diminutive chips could be heading to a living room near you thanks to plans by LG Electronics.

According to an article over on VentureBeat, the company is planning to integrate the ARM11 MPCore multi-core processor into its next-generation range of TVs in order to offer seamless integration with web-based content.

The plans – which involve pairing a dual- or quad-core ARM11 chip with an ARM Mali graphics chip – will bring web-based content into LG TVs, allowing for greater levels of interaction than is currently possible – and without the need for any additional hardware.

It's already known that the ARM processor and graphics chips are more than powerful enough to play back Flash-based content, offering up the possibility of rich multimedia functionality – a must for a TV, really. Fully-featured web browsing is also likely to make an appearance, with sites accessible with “one or two clicks of the remote.

It's difficult to see the feature taking off, however: most households that can afford a new, feature-rich HD TV will already have at least one computer on which they can browse websites, and without a dedicated keyboard peripheral text entry and website navigation could prove to be a pain.

Despite doubts over LG's implementations, it's certainly a win for ARM – and a worrying development for market leading rival Intel, which has previously admitted that its low-power chips have quite some way to go in order to fully compete with ARM's offerings.

Do you think that interactive web content on a TV is the way to go, or do you still have bad memories of the travesty that was WebTV? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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