Osaka, Japan - Panasonic, the leading
brand for which Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is best known,
today announced that it has developed the new chipset for disc drives
to record and play Blu-ray Disc (BD), DVD-Multi (DVD-RAM, DVD-R,
DVD-RW, and DVD-ROM), +R, +RW, and all CD formats. Blu-ray Disc format,
which use a blue-violet laser, is being promoted as a standard for
next-generation optical discs. So far chipsets for BD-R/BD-RE and
DVD/CD were commercialized separately. However, the demand for a BD
drive that is compatible with all BD/DVD/CD media formats increases.
The chipset achieves the industry's highest record/play BD performance.
BD drives with DVD record/play and CD record/play functions can be
easily manufactured.
Panasonic will start sample shipments in December 2005 and mass production in January 2006.
[Advantages]
This chipset is in accordance with BD and
DVD/CD standards, and consists of two chips: a front-end processor for
analog processing such as servo control and laser power control, and a
optical disc controller for signal processing as digital lead channel.
The advantages are as follows:
- Can be easily applied to PCs, which require compatibility with
multiple media formats, by following the newest BD standards, including
BD-ROM standards, and by making hybrid discs using conventional media.
- World's first chipset that has perfect record/play compatibility
among the BD, DVD-Multi, +R, +RW, and CD formats. Chipset also features
the industry's highest record/play performance (BD media record/play
speed: 4x).
- As for PC interface, the new chipsets have a series of part numbers which are applicable for either ATAPI or Serial-ATA.
[Technologies]
The new chipset was achieved by applying the following technologies:
- BD/DVD hybrid digital lead channel technology using Matsushita's original PRML method
- Highly accurate write strategy technology and high-speed signal processing technology for high-density and high-speed media
- Built-in Serial-ATA core developed by Matsushita (conforms to Serial-ATA 1.0a standard)
[Practical Applications]
Start of sample shipments: December 2005
Sample
price: Depends
on quantity
Start of product shipments: January 2006
Source: Panasonic Press Release
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