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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Starlight who wrote (13219)	7/21/2000 12:12:26 PM
From: capt rocky 1	Respond to of 60323

today is options experation friday. stange movement of stocks take place on these days . good time to buy the unexplained dips as they are usually option related. sndk could end up under 65 and the july 65 calls would be worthless. hope not. rocky

To: Starlight who wrote (13219)	7/21/2000 12:33:04 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 60323

Internet audio platform delivers $5 chip for MP3 players By Peter Clarke EE Times (07/21/00, 11:20:41 AM EDT) LONDON ( ChipWire) -- Parthus Technologies plc, a developer of semiconductor intellectual property, islicensing a collection of Internet-audio hardware and software modules that can beimplemented as a single-chip MP3 player at a silicon cost of less than $5, the company said. The company's MediaStream platform supports a range of audio equipment types and functions, from MP3 portable players and cell phones to speech recognition for mobile devices and devices with Bluetooth connectivity. As a measure of the value Parthus puts on its platform, the company said MediaStream's first publicly known licensee, Creative Technology Ltd. in Singapore, has signed a multimillion-dollar deal covering the next few years. While ARM Ltd. in Cambridge, England, holds a minority interest in Parthus, MediaStream is microprocessor-independent. It's based on the DSP2410, a 24-bit Harvard architecture DSP developed by Parthus four years ago and used subsequently in a lot of its audio-design work. In addition, Parthus offers analog components, pieces of audio software and serial and parallel audio, and regular data interfaces. They include interfaces to flash memory and flash memory card connectors. Creative, best known for its Soundblaster range of sound cards for PCs, plans to use MediaStream as the base technology for its future MP3 players. "MediaStream's ultra-low power requirements, programmability and surroundsound effects are the key advantages of this platform," said Sean Mitchell, director of multimedia at Parthus in Dublin, Ireland. "Our technology and unique platform approach is enabling Creative to rapidly build lighter, smaller and more powerful next-generation MP3 players." "Connectivity, programmability, mobility and time-to-market are the key advantages to licensing mobile-Internet platforms from Parthus," said Hock Leow, Creative's chief technology officer. "Moreover, licensing from Parthus enables us to cost-effectively source our chips from a foundry of choice." Format choices Mitchell said the digital hardware component of MediaStream has been implemented in silicon using 0.18-micron CMOS, but it's available for license as an HDL file at the register-transfer level, in netlist format at the gate level or as a GDS-II tape at the layout level. Mitchell said a C compiler and third-party development tools are available to support the DSP, but their names will be disclosed only to customers or potential customers prepared to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The quantified power consumption of any configuration of the MediaStream was also confidential, Mitchell said, adding that MediaStream was, "as good or better than any other audio IP platform. The Cirrus Logic MP3 player; we can beat them." The speech recognition claimed for MediaStream results from third-party software running on the DSP2410. Mitchell would not identify the company whose software has been licensed or say if Parthus could sublicense it.