(UPDATE) Cirrus Logic Touts New Chip As Accelerating Spread Of DVD Drives
Dow Jones Online News, Friday, April 10, 1998 at 13:08
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Chip maker Cirrus Logic Inc. said Friday that it
expects new, more highly-integrated chips to accelerate a transition in
the personal-computer industry to DVD-ROM drives from currently popular
CD-ROM drives.
DVD, or digital video disk, is an updated compact disk capable of
holding four to ten times as much data, making it suitable for playing
back digital movies or storing computer software. The products have been
slow to catch on because of high costs and a shortage of movies and
DVD-ROM computer software, analysts said.
But Cirrus Logic (CRUS) said its new chip that combines DVD control
functions will reduce costs of the drives, helping to accelerate the
acceptance of the products as PC peripherals.
"We have started to make deep investments into making as highly
integrated a solution as possible, to accelerate the move over from
CD-ROM to DVD-ROM," said Steve Dines, a Cirrus Logic vice president and
general manager of the company's mass-storage division.
The company said its new DVD controller, introduced in March, also
reduces the size of the DVD-ROM drives and improves their fuctionality
and reliability.
"It will be a very interesting exercise five years from now to take a
DVD with a single-chip solution and compare it to a VCR from 1990,"
Dines said. "It will be like like looking at a Swiss chronometer from
1900 and comparing it to a cheap $10 digital watch of today."
Copyright (c) 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |
