1999 saw the sudden emer-
gence of an exciting new mar-
ket for equipment that plays 
digital music files stored in the 
MP3 format. ST was fast off the 
ground and became the clear 
market leader in MP3 devices.

Jointly developed by ST and 
Hitachi, the SH-5 RISC proces-
sor provides an unparalleled 
combination of low price, low 
power consumption and high 
performance for advanced digi-
tal consumer products.

The STV0297 QAM demodulator 
connects seamlessly to the 
STi5512 OMEGA back-end 
de-coder to provide a complete 
solution for cable TV set-top 
boxes. More than half of the 
STBs built in 1999 contained 
ST’s OMEGA devices or other 
ST20-based back-end chips 
from ST.

ST’s cost-effective CMOS imag-
ing technology allows image 
capture and image processing 
to be combined on the same 
chip. This opens up new oppor-
tunities in a whole spectrum of 
applications — from toys to bio-
metrics and automotive systems.