TI aims to slash PC prices with superchip

Texas Instruments (TI) is preparing to launch a 'superchip' designed to reduce the number of hard disk drive components a from nine to four and driving down the cost of the PC even more.

Steve Sutton, vice president of TI's Storage Products Group, said the chip will integrate five integrated circuits (IC) for hard disk drives into a single CMOS device. It will put read-channel function with DSP (digital signal processing), control logic, interfaces and memory on a single IC.

Sutton claimed the new chip, which should be available in the second half of this year, could be the largest cost cutter for personal computers to come about in the next few years.

Tom Engibous, CEO of TI, said the chip is a huge growth prospect for the company. "We have a potential to hit a home run in the mass storage business with the ability to integrate a digital CMOS read channel with the rest of the functions," he said.

Will Strauss, chief analyst for research company Forward Concepts, agreed with Sutton that TI's new chip will reduce costs, but questioned how much. "A superchip certainly will reduce costs of PCs," Strauss said. "Besides the processor chip, the memory chip is the single most expensive chip. But will it reduce costs by $5 or $50? That answer depends on the greed of the company."