Convergence is the key trend causing new rivalries to arise. One of the most obvious examples of convergence is the cell phone. Cell phones are acquiring the functionality of PDAs, digital still cameras and digital audio players. (Can openers and vacuum cleaners will no doubt be next.) This merging of capabilities is pitting processor vendors with long histories in the cell phone market-think Texas Instruments-against companies that built their success in other applications-Intel being a prime example.

And more twists are coming. Handset developers are betting that integrating sophisticated 3-D gaming into phones will provide differentiation and drive sales. Nokia has already announced its N-Gage gaming handset (which looks more like a Game Boy than a phone), and has purchased multiplayer gaming technology from Sega.

This focus on 3-D graphics is reconfiguring the competitive field. For example, TI licensed 3-D accelerators from Imagination Technologies Group earlier this year, a move clearly intended to enable TI to offer cell phone chips with 3-D graphics capabilities. And last month Nvidia, a vendor of graphics chips for PCs and game consoles, announced it will acquire MediaQ, a developer of processors for handsets and PDAs. The significance of these moves is clear: TI and Nvidia are about to become competitors.

Convergence is also creating new competitors in consumer electronics. Game consoles, set-top boxes, personal video recorders and DVD players are on a collision course. As these products merge, equipment manufacturers that have dominated particular product segments are coming under attack from unfamiliar directions. Similarly, the chip vendors that supply them face unsettling new competition.

Who will win these increasingly confusing contests? As convergence creates ever-more-complex systems and chips, superiority in any particular technology, such as wireless communications, is unlikely to be the decisive factor. Rather, victory will belong to those best able to quickly and effectively integrate the range of technologies needed for the emerging "uber-boxes."

Jeff Bier is the general manager of Berkeley Design Technology Inc. (www.BDTI.com), the DSP technology analysis and software development company. Kenton Williston of BDTI contributed to this column.