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As we have discussed in this article, Sony has
succeeded in replacing the TV tuner, which
used air core inductors and varactor diodes as
its main components and has remained largely
unchanged for the last 30 years, with a semiconductor
technology based silicon tuner. It
is commonly thought that using the BiCMOS
process, which has superlative frequency characteristics,
would present lower technological
hurdles and make it easier to achieve success
in this development. However, implementing
a silicon tuner in the same CMOS used for the
signal-processing ICs, would itself be a large
step forward, both for reducing costs in the
future and achieving a "one-chip TV", which
is a dream of IC designers.
In the future, Sony will continue to make
improvements to the CMOS silicon tuner
introduced here, for example reducing power
consumption (see figure 6) even further. In
particular, Sony will develop and apply these
technologies to create environmentally friendly
TVs that do not consume larger amounts of
resources. |
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Future Developments
Vol.56