As we move to the end of 2007, one development that stands tall is the fulfillment of the so-called convergence prophecy. Its ascent—against the backdrop of a series of megaflops—is rich in irony. Convergence had been a hot topic in technology and trade publications during the late 1980s and much of the 1990s.

Probably the real tickers were the advent of the PC as a powerful new business tool and the rise of digital telecommunications. While Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) became the poster child of the telecom world, networking guys created their own field of dreams in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) as a super multimedia machine. Then cable mogul John Malone started evangelizing his 500-channel multimedia universe.

While the notion of convergence looked like a panacea, the industry seemed to move in circles, with no clear direction. And gradually, the technology and trade press stopped talking about the subject.

Last year, consulting firm Deloitte proclaimed a convergence renaissance in its report "Digital Convergence: The Trillion Dollar Challenge," asserting that convergence will create new product categories and new markets.

Despite a slow road to the phenomenon, products and applications such as camera phones, digital music players, VoIP, IP appliances and IPTV are testament to the fact that convergence is still a land of opportunities with an awful lot of stakes.

This coming-of-age story has a particular significance to this publication. It reveals that what really unlocked the incredible potential promised by convergence was its fundamental building block: silicon.

In a recent interview with EE Times, LSI co-founder Wilf Corrigan unraveled some mysteries about the evolution of convergence. While acknowledging that the Internet provided the first realistic vehicle for an overlap of communications, computing and consumer, he said that convergence is happening now because silicon building blocks are ready in the form of SoC platforms.

In retrospect, DirecTV was probably the first major success story in the convergence playing field. The hugely-successful digital satellite service was launched in the mid-1990s in the United States by Hughes Electronics.

STMicroelectronics (ST) provided the silicon for MPEG-2 decoders used in the set-top boxes for the consumer satellite service. While MPEG-2 compression technology laid the foundation for the DirecTV triumph, it was ST's silicon on which the success of this critical multimedia undertaking was built.

Convergence in the so-called 3Cs is now a reality, and that explains why some of Taiwan's IT manufacturers are whining about the increasing overlap between telecom and consumer electronics products. They claim that the product overlap of these applications could be as much as 60 percent.

But this design challenge may prove to be a new market opportunity. It certainly means more investment in terms of product design, but the good news is that silicon for converged devices is ready. Furthermore, it's coming with software and system design support—something critical for convergence-centric multimedia applications.

Now it's up to system houses and electronics product manufacturers to make the best of these times when, as Corrigan puts it, you can buy a chip and everything would be in it.

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