Taiwan uses Toshiba chip set...............................
OESL Makes Taiwan's First DVD-ROM Components
June 2, 1997 (Taipei) -- Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute's Opto-Electronics Systems Laboratories recently completed the system control software and circuit board technology for Taiwan's first DVD player.
Four firms already have signed contracts with OESL to obtain the technology for mass production. OESL will serve as a consultant to industry. OESL also plans to develop other key DVD-ROM player components, including main axle motors and chip sets.
DVDs are expected to replace both compact discs and video compact discs in the near future. Electronics industry sources estimate that by the year 2005, demand for DVD-ROM players in the US and Japanese markets will reach 100 million units per year, valued at 3 trillion yen.
DVDs have seven times more storage capacity than VCDs of the same size, giving DVDs higher resolution and better sound. DVD drives also can run VCD, CD and CD-ROM media.
Large Japanese firms such as Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. already are taking a leadership role in this new area of technology. Taiwan's OESL also has invested a lot of time, energy and money in this area. Since 1991, OESL has spent more than NT$100 million to develop optics information technology, including DVDs.
OESL's DVD-ROM uses a Toshiba chip set, a Sankyo optical head and an ATAPI interface to connect it to the motherboard. It has an information transfer rate of 13MB per second -- about eight times that of a CD-ROM player. It can read double-sided, double-layer recordings. And it has a capacity of up to 17GB.
OESL Director Lin Keng-hua said his organization already has completed development of the circuit board, the interface software, the server software and the server system simulation program for its DVD. OESL will be able to provide DVD-ROM design and development both for complete players and individual modules.
In the future, OESL plans to design DVD-ROM drives with recording capability, as well as main axle motor sets, transmission organization design and disk players.
By the year 2000, the number of DVD players installed in new computers is expected to surpass the number of CD-ROM players, reaching anywhere from 70 million to 80 million players.
Commercial Times, Taiwan - 06/02/97 |
