New Intel Chip for Digital TV Could Remake the Market

The Intel Corporation is planning to do to digital television what it has already done to computing.

Intel's ability to integrate display, television receiver and computer electronics on a single piece of silicon is likely to open new markets for a class of products - including plasma, projection and L.C.D. TV's - that now sell for $3,000 to $10,000.

Intel, as well as other large chip manufacturers, should be able to expand the benefits of Moore's Law, named for Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel, which accurately predicted decades ago that computer chips would continue to double in capacity roughly every 18 months, while their price would continue to fall.

Lightweight 50-inch screens only 7 inches thick for about $1,000, perhaps as early as the 2004 holiday season.

At the consumer electronics show next month, experts said they expected to see rear-projection sets that are only 10 inches deep and far lighter than plasma and L.C.D. systems.