Philips First to Demo CD-Recordable Drive.LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 18, 1996--Philips Semiconductors, a division of Philips Electronics NV Philips Electronics NV in full Royal Philips Electronics NV Dutch Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV Major Dutch manufacturer of consumer electronics, household appliances, lightbulbs, and imaging equipment. , the inventors of the first CD technology, announced that the company is first to publicly demonstrate a CD-Recordable (CD-R (CD-Recordable) A writable CD technology using a type of compact disc that can be recorded, but not erased (CD-Rs are "write once" discs). CD-R discs are used to master CD-ROMs, to back up data and to make copies of data for distribution. ) reference drive design operating with the proposed SCSI-3 Multimedia Command Set (MMC See MultiMediaCard and Microsoft Management Console. ). Philips Semiconductors is demonstrating the performance benefits of this new CD-R drive in both SCSI SCSI in full Small Computer System Interface Once common standard for connecting peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, etc.) to small and medium-sized computers. SCSI has given way to faster standards, such as Firewire and USB. and ATAPI-based Windows95 computer systems. The MMC specification, currently being approved by ANSI (American National Standards Institute, New York, www.ansi.org) A membership organization founded in 1918 that coordinates the development of U.S. voluntary national standards in both the private and public sectors. It is the U.S. member body to ISO and IEC. Technical Committee X3T10, provides standardized access to common features of SCSI-3 devices used in multimedia applications. "Existing CD-R drives are custom solutions that rely completely on proprietary driver software within the host computer," said product marketing manager Sunil Nethisinghe. "MMC will change this limitation dramatically by ensuring interoperability of new CD-R and CD- RW (CD-ReWritable) drives across a variety of multimedia hardware platforms Each hardware platform, or CPU family, has a unique machine language. All software presented to the computer for execution must be in the binary coded machine language of that CPU. Following is a list of the major hardware platforms in existence today. See platform. and operating systems." Because the MMC specification defines a set of high-level commands that control devices such as CD-R and CD-RW (CD-ReWritable) The only rewritable CD technology. CD-RW disks look like other CD media, but with close inspection, they have a more polished surface with a very dark blue-gray cast. drives, device- dependent control functions must be performed entirely within the connected devices. To achieve this, Philips' CD-R drive features a new controller chip as well as a comprehensive suite of MMC interpreter routines for the drive's 80C32 microcontroller while using only 128 Kbytes of programmable ROM. Packaged in a 128-pin quad flat-pack, the SAA (Systems Application Architecture) A set of interfaces designed to cross all IBM platforms from PC to mainframe. Introduced by IBM in 1987, SAA includes the Common User Access (CUA), the Common Programming Interface for Communications (CPI-C) and Common Communications 7390 High- Performance CD-R/CD-RW controller contains all the logic required to connect Philips Semiconductors' decoder (read mode) and encoder (write mode) modules to SCSI or ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) The specification for ATA (IDE) tape drives and CD-ROMs. See IDE. ATAPI - AT Attachment Packet Interface hosts. The controller is fully compatible with Philips Key Modules' 6x-speed read/2x-speed write CD-R and CD-RW engines, and transfers data to the host at burst rates as high as 10Mbytes per second. "The high level of functional integration and unique memory- management techniques implemented in this chip allow manufacturers to reduce drive prices by as much as one third," said Nethisinghe, adding that "our unique combination of hardware, firmware and software support can shorten the design cycle of MMC-compliant CD-R and CD-RW drives by as much as a year." The MMC-compatible firmware drivers, which have been developed in conjunction with Philips Key Modules, can be supplied to OEMs as object code, or licensed as modifiable source code so new features can be added. To evaluate drives in real multimedia systems, Philips Semiconductors also supplies Windows95-compatible driver software with the reference design. This software, which features drive-letter-access and drag- and-drop capabilities, supports both the SCSI and ATAPI interfaces. In addition, both the host software and the firmware driver modules support fixed-length and variable-length packet writing, making CD-R and CD-RW drives based on these modules as easy to use as conventional hard disks. Philips Semiconductors, Inc., a subsidiary of Philips Electronics North America Corporation and an affiliate of Philips Electronics NV, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the eleventh largest semiconductor supplier in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position that company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia, and wireless communications market. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by regional customer applications labs. Additional information on Philips Semiconductors can be obtained by accessing the home page at http://www.semiconductors.philips.com -0- Note to Editors: Sales information may be obtained by calling 408/ 991-4540. Please do NOT use the editor-contact or corporate telephone numbers for sales information. Visit us at Comdex/Fall 96, booth number L2625, South Hall, Las Vegas Convention Center The Las Vegas Convention Center is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and is located in Clark County, Nevada. It is one of the largest Convention centers in the world. At the end of 2004, the center had 3. . CONTACT: Philips Semiconductors Jodi Guilbault, 408/991-2332 jguilba@scs.philips.com or Oak Ridge Public Relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most , Inc. Pragati Grover, 408/253-5042 pragati@oakridge.com |
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