Global Team Bringing Chip Set To Market Fast

"Implementing a comprehensive DVD chip set involves a wide range of analog, digital and mixed-signal design experience, and we have chosen our top people from around the world to contribute," stated Paul Bibeau, product development manager for removable storage products at SSI.

"When working in a new technology area, it's also a big plus for the design resources to be close to customers for continual interaction during the final specification phase of a program. That helps to minimize design turns and eliminate the possibility for errors. So the involvement of our resources close to our current DVD customers in Japan and Singapore is essential both to be fast to market and to create the right product."

Bibeau explained that each design center had already contributed significantly to two initial DVD devices from Silicon Systems -- an analog front end/read channel and an ATAPI controller.

"Essentially, we've tapped into the extensive experience in magneto optical drives residing in our Tokyo design center, plus the years of background in CD-ROM controllers, and over a decade of expertise in high performance disk read channels in Tustin, combined with the skills of our Singapore group in digital mixed-signal audio and DSP based servo controllers to assemble an unbeatable team. We doubt that any other semiconductor manufacturer in the world could apply better resources to developing the right DVD chip set." Bibeau said.

Bibeau indicated that the final DVD chip set for second generation drives will include both BiCMOS and high density, sub-micron CMOS devices. He said samples will be available in January 1997.

Silicon Systems, a TDK Group company, is a leader in the design and manufacture of advanced application-specific, mixed-signal integrated circuits for the data storage and communications markets.

Editors Note: Special Quotes From Singapore & Japan Contacts -- Singapore-- Mark Foo of Silicon Systems Singapore stated, "Our successes in designing multimedia products along with our experience in servo controllers positions us to be a leader in this new program. We're excited to put these experiences to work to benefit our DVD customers."

Japan-- Yuichiro Baba of Silicon Systems Tokyo Design Center said, "Having been in the magneto optical market for many years provides us with a greater understanding of what it takes to get to market fast. Our experience is the DVD customer's advantage."