Quanta Storage, the largest slim-type optical storage drive maker in Taiwan, expects to launch half-height, desktop-use DVD+RW drives in June and sample slim-type, notebook-use DVD+RW drives in August, the company said.
Samples of DVD-Dual drives used in desktops and notebooks are set to be delivered in the second half of this year, the company said. Quanta Storage’s recordable DVD drives will adopt optical pick-up heads (PUHs) and controller ICs provided by Philips Semiconductors, but will be running on the Taiwanese company’s self-developed firmware, the company said.
In addition, the optical drive maker said it had started sampling half-height combo drives supporting 48x write and read speeds with CD-RW discs and 16x reading for DVD-ROM discs earlier this month.
When asked about market speculation that prices for half-height DVD+RW drives could plunge to as low as US$100 (£62) by year-end, the company said the forecast was “quite plausible.” Currently, half-height DVD+RW drives are priced at around US$300 (£184).
Comments