Sun Microelectronics is planning a media chip, sources tell me. The company has pulled together a team of a dozen top-flight engineers to design what's billed as a highly integrated processor for multimedia consumer applications.

What's different is that Sun's media processor — unlike the numerous competing efforts now wending their way to market — is Java-based. This means that the chip's core will be PicoJava, the Sun-architected CPU that executes Java byte codes. Add support for MPEG-2 and DVD and you've got a full-blown chip for new-age consumer devices.

However, Sun will have a tough road ahead because the media-processor arena is already crowded. Chromatic Research, with its MPact chip, and Philips Semiconductors, with TriMedia, pioneered the field. Now, Texas Instruments, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi and Sharp are planning offerings. And two lesser-known lights — Equator Technologies and VM Labs — are jumping in.

We also wonder if Sun's plan will steal thunder from Transmeta Inc., the secretive startup founded by Sparc architect David Ditzel. ("A Java-based media chip? That's my idea," Ditzel might be saying to himself.)

Plus, a Java media chip is something of a stretch. Most of Sun's competitors are betting on very-long-instruction-word architectures, which promise processing power, though at the price of complexity. Java is much simpler, but it's also slow.

Moreover, Sun is still reeling from a year of unmet expectations. The company made a good initial bid to build momentum for a planned trio of Java microprocessors, called PicoJava, MicroJava and UltraJava. Sun even signed up high-profile licensees such as IBM, NEC, Fujitsu, LG Semicon, Rockwell and Siemens. However, the chips have been slow in coming to market. (We'll provide a silicon-status update in a future column.)

When I called Sun Microelectronics for comment, they were tied up preparing for their annual corporate-sales meeting.

We're curious to hear what Mel Friedman, the new head of Sun Microelectronics, has to say about this. Friedman has not spoken much in public since he took the job in March. That's a good sign, since it means he knows the task at hand is not to talk, but to get Java silicon to market quickly, in quantity, at low prices.

What's your view of the Java landscape? Let me know via e-mail.