Magnum Semiconductor Announces MS3900 Front-End Processor for Optical Drives.

New DSP-Based IC Now in Production for Economical CD and DVD Recorders and DVD Players

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Magnum Semiconductor (Milpitas, CA), a leading innovator in consumer audio/video technology, today announced the new MS3900 Front-End Processor for DVD recorders and players.

The MS3900 provides optical disk data and servo processing on a single chip, performing DVD encoding, DVD and CD decoding, and servo control functions. During read operations, the on-chip digital PLL (phase-locked loop) provides high data-recovery rates with EFM and EFM+ demodulation. During write operations, the on-chip DLL (delay-locked loop) provides write-strategy while the PLL provides write clock generation. The MS3900 includes on-chip AD and DA (analog-to-digital, and digital-to-analog) converters. The architecture makes use of a proprietary DSP (digital signal processor), and built-in RAM (random access memory) for servo control programming, to enhance the flexibility of the servo control function.

The MS3900 provides a full ATAPI interface, as well as a direct host bus interface for popular multimedia back-end processors such as Magnum's MS9400 family. The direct host bus interface allows the front end and back end tasks to be integrated into mono-board systems which reduce product costs by eliminating the separate optical drive controller board with its CPU and memory.

"Optical disks, CDs and DVDs, are the media of choice for consumers to archive their growing libraries of multimedia content including music, videos, and pictures," said Jack Guedj, president and chief executive officer of Magnum Semiconductor. "Magnum's MS3900 front-end processor provides a flexible and economical solution for consumer A/V systems to record and play back from optical disks," he added.

The MS3900 works with optical pick-up units from multiple vendors including Hitachi and Samsung. In addition the MS3900 provides CSS and CPRM keys for digital rights management.

The MS3900 comes in a 208 pin LQFP (low-profile quad flat-pack) package which measures 28mm by 28mm. It is priced under $10 in OEM quantities. The MS3900 is in production and is available now for ordering.

About Magnum Semiconductor

Magnum Semiconductor is a premier provider of chips, software, reference platforms and engineering support for recording, viewing and managing high-quality audio/video content. Magnum Semiconductor is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif. with sales and engineering offices in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Further information is available at www.magnumsemi.com.

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