Intel buys Israeli firm to push into living room

Intel Corp. agreed to acquire Oplus Technologies Inc., an Israeli semiconductor maker, to bolster its offerings for digital televisions and set-top boxes, the world's largest chip maker said Thursday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Israeli media reported that the company paid $100 million for Oplus.

Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, has long tried to introduce its PC chips into the living room, where it sees a lucrative consumer market. But the company has a mixed track record with video technology.

In October, Intel scrapped plans to enter the digital television chip business just a year after it announced a plan to compete head-on with Texas Instruments Inc. in the rear-projection TV chip business.

The company also tried to make a big splash with a design for a $700 living-room PC, although it remains too early to tell whether consumers are willing to exchange separate components for DVD players and video recording for a single PC-like device.

Oplus's chips process and enhance video signals before they are displayed on a TV screen. Such products, which are also made by U.S. rivals Pixelworks Inc. and Genesis Microchip Inc. , are especially important in high-definition TVs.

"Oplus products have created a new standard for image quality, color reproduction, noise reduction and sharpness," Glenda Dorchak, vice president of Intel's digital home group, said in a statement.

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Intel may have lacked the video expertise to compete in the living room, and Oplus could be the missing piece, said Chris Chinnock, a senior analyst with Insight Media, a display research firm.

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"It makes sense that they would want to have this technology," Chinnock said. Oplus's technology, he said, could be combined with Intel's other chips for data processing and communications and sold to makers of television set-top boxes or incorporated directly into televisions.

The scrapped video technology, called liquid crystal on silicon, would have given Intel a central component used in rear-projection televisions. Oplus's technology, in contrast, processes the signals before they are sent to the screen.

Oplus will initially become a subsidiary of Intel, said Oplus Chief Executive Yair Alpern.

"We will continue to sell our own products for flat-panel TVs and digital TVs, and we're going to integrate with Intel for the digital home," Alpern said in an interview.