Federal money for DVD disc manufacturing...............
DVD will succeed even with the Feds behind it. The company is traded on the NASDAQ under ENER.
ECD Receives Contract for Innovative Manufacturing Technology for DVD Disks
TROY, Mich., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD)
(Nasdaq: ENER) has been awarded a two-year multi-million dollar contract to
support development of a new, low-cost manufacturing system for DVD (digital
versatile disks), a high-storage-capacity optical memory product that is based
on ECD's patented Ovonic phase change technology. The new disks will be fully
compatible with current DVD standards. Manufacturing throughput for the new
disks is expected to be greater than conventionally-manufactured disks and at
a considerably lower cost.
The contract was awarded by the U.S. Commerce Department through the
Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute of Standards, and the
new manufacturing system will be used to produce both pre-recorded DVD-ROM
media and phase change rewritable DVD-RAM media. ECD originated phase change
technology, which is the standard selected for use by the DVD Forum a group of
leading DVD product manufacturers for rewritable DVD-RAM media.
DVD disks can store seven times more data than comparable CD-ROMs, and
they have the potential to broaden the market for optical memory disks,
especially if manufacturing throughput can be increased while simultaneously
decreasing manufacturing costs. While DVD media is expected to grow in the
near-term to a $2 billion dollar industry for consumer electronics and
computer storage, this technology can extend its impact to the photographic
industry and the medical-records industry for storage of X-rays and other
medical information. Low-cost DVD-ROM disks produced at high rates also are
expected to enable the economical distribution of multimedia publications.
ECD will apply its expertise based on it's leadership position in roll-to-
roll vacuum manufacturing and phase change materials to develop a low-cost,
high throughput manufacturing system that both formats and coats the DVD
media.
ECD expects that the new manufacturing technology can increase the
throughput of DVD media by an order of magnitude and reduce the cost by a
factor of ten.
ECD is a leader in the synthesis of new materials and the development of
advanced production technology and innovative products. ECD has pioneered the
development of products and production technology based on amorphous,
disordered and related materials, with an emphasis on alternative energy and
advanced information technologies.
ECD's web side is ovonic.com. Investor Relations e-mail may be
directed to ovonic@aol.com.
SOURCE Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
/CONTACT: Nancy Bacon, Senior Vice President, or David Strand, Manager,
Memory Products Development, of ECD, 248-280-1900/
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax, 800-758-5804,
ext. 283250/
/Web site: ovonic.com
(ENER) |
