MILPITAS, Calif., Jan. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The next generation
DVD format was highly visible at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week
in Las Vegas. The two formatting standards being shown are known as Blu-ray
and HD-DVD. Both of these standards allow a significant increase in the amount
of data storage over conventional DVD disks. As a result a full feature-length
high definition movie can be stored on one disk. Blu-ray will support up to
54 gigabytes of information. While HD-DVD's highest capacity is 45 gigabytes.
Both of these standards allow at least a 10X improvement over current DVDs,
which can only hold 4.7 gigabytes. This will be the new battleground for video
in 2006 and 2007.
Sipex has played a major role in both of these standards offering two
different types of products for these player/recorders. The first product is
known as the Photo Detector IC (PDIC). This device detects the laser beam
reflected as data from the DVD disk. The second product is an Automatic Power
Control circuit (APC) which detects and controls the laser power delivered to
the DVD disk during the write operation. Both of these devices are highly
complex analog circuits that reside on the optical pickup head of a DVD
recorder/player. Every PDIC is a custom product for each drive manufactured.
Sipex has already released 2 products for the Blu-ray standard and 4
products for the HD-DVD standard. The first product was sampled in July of
2004. "We are pleased to be part of this new explosive market," said Ralph
Schmitt, CEO of Sipex. "Our customers have explicitly told us that our
technology is superior to other sources in this area. We expect 2006 to be an
excellent growth year in this product category."
Sipex has been designing and manufacturing products for the optical
storage market since 2000. A total of 23 products have been introduced over
that time. Total shipments to date have exceeded 50 million units. A key
performance differentiator is the BiCMOS-based 3 wavelength photodetector that
was developed by the Sipex Optical Storage design team. This detector allows
one product to address Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, DVD and CD applications
simultaneously.
"Our technology can be easily and quickly adapted to either standard",
said Ed Lam, Senior VP of Marketing. "We were first to market with working
products and we will be rewarded with increased business as these standards
are incorporated into consumer products."
About Sipex
Sipex Corporation is a semiconductor company that designs, manufactures
and markets high performance, value-added analog integrated circuits (ICs).
Sipex serves the broad analog signal processing market with interface, power
management and optical storage ICs for use in automotive, portable products,
computing, communications, and networking infrastructure markets. The company
is headquartered in Milpitas, CA with additional offices in Belgium, Canada,
China, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Sipex sells products direct and through its
distribution channels. For more information about Sipex, visit http://www.sipex.com
Ed Lam
Senior VP, Marketing and Business Development
Phone: 408-934-7500
Fax: 408-935-7600
SOURCE Sipex Corporation
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Related links:
http://www.sipex.com
Company News On-Call:
http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/111683.html
CONTACT:
Ed Lam, Senior VP, Marketing and Business
Development of Sipex Corporation, +1-408-934-7500, or fax,
+1-408-935-7600
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