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Intel jointly announced with AMD, Dell and Lenovo a plan to phase out the aging analogue VGA video port in favour of digital interfaces such as DisplayPort and HDMI.
Chipmakers Intel and AMD released a statement that said the firms expected VGA and the internal LCD format LVDS to be no longer supported by the companies’ product lines by 2015.
Selling up the obvious benefits of the digital formats over the 20 year-old VGA standard such as higher resolutions and greater colour fidelity, Intel’s strategy and planning veep Eric Mentzer said that DisplayPort and HDMI “enhance the consumer visual PC experience” and at lower power levels useful for mobile computing.
“By moving to these new interfaces, Intel is able to focus investment on new innovations to enhance the PC experience rather than having to solve challenges of supporting legacy analog interfaces on our latest silicon process technology and products.”
AMD’s graphics division CTO Eric Demers added his bit: ““Legacy interfaces such as VGA, DVI and LVDS have not kept pace, and newer standards such as DisplayPort and HDMI clearly provide the best connectivity options moving forward.”
“In our opinion, DisplayPort 1.2 is the future interface for PC monitors, along with HDMI 1.4a for TV connectivity.”
Intel and AMD continue to offer products with VGA output and for lower end components, particularly embedded devices, the ancient 15-pin analogue video port is often the only video interconnect. The consumer market has already been making major inroads to HDMI, particularly since computer displays and HDTV sets began to share parts.
However entire classes of equipment such as servers, kiosks, security installations and so on, all typically use analogue video – often due to the ease of switching outputs to display devices. With such display equipment often outlasting PC equipment it seems the market is set for a roaring trade in DisplayPort to VGA cables.
Image: Phil Hawksworth (Flikr)
