1999-10-25 , E/IC-1059/54
Product News From Philips Semiconductors

With the introduction of its highly integrated  SAA7811, Philips Semiconductors has become the first company to provide DVD drive manufacturers with a single-chip solution for 12-speed (12x) DVD-ROM drives. In addition to this world first in DVD performance, the SAA7811 also supports 56x CD-ROM access, making it ideal for use in high-end CD/DVD combi drives.

"Reliably reading DVD disks at 12 times normal speed is very dependent on the quality of the drive's servo control loops," said Yasuo Suzuki, Philips Semiconductors' product marketing manager for DVD products. "It is Philips' wealth of experience in the design of both the servo mechanisms and their control electronics that has enabled us to maintain the lead in high-performance DVD systems," he added.

In a single 208-lead quad flat pack the SAA7811 combines channel decoder, block decoder, servo control and microcontroller functions that previously required the use of several ICs, even in lower speed drives. Its host interface supports ATA/ATA-2 PIO and ATA/ATAPI-4 Ultra-DMA data transfer modes, and can also be configured as a generic DMA interface for special applications. Built-in multimedia functions include playback of audio CDs at speeds greater than 1x using a DRAM buffer, IEC 60958 digital audio interfacing, and audio playback via an on-chip DAC with 4x oversampling filter and digitally controlled volume/muting.

Spindle motor control for CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) and pseudo-CLV modes allows the SAA7811 to read a wide range of disk formats, including CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM and DVD-Video.

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the eighth largest semiconductor supplier based on Dataquest's 1998 report*. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs. Additional information on Philips Semiconductors can be obtained by accessing its home page at http://cdrom.semiconductors.com/.

* Based on Vendor Revenue from Shipments of Total Semiconductors Worldwide according to Dataquest's 1998 Worldwide Semiconductor Market Share report published in May, 1999.