STMicroelectronics Integrates Complete DVD Playback Electronics in Two System-on-Chip Devices

World's most advanced System-on-Chip solution will further increase DVD's record-breaking consumer acceptance

STMicroelectronics announced the industry's most advanced silicon solution for DVD Playback. Building on both its long-term leadership in MPEG decoding technology and its world-class System-on-Chip (SoC) integration capabilities, ST is now implementing all of the analog and digital electronic circuitry required for DVD playback in just two chips: the STm5589 DVD Audio and Video Decoder and the STm6316 DVD Optical Disc Interface and Servo Control chip.

Reducing the number of chips required to implement an electronic system benefits equipment manufacturers and their customers both in terms of the equipment's price/performance ratio and its reliability; fewer chips mean smaller and more cost-effective Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and manufacturing costs, while system reliability is increased due to the reduction in the number of soldered connections between components.

The two chips in ST's new DVD Playback solution handle all of the playback functions, from the analog interface to the optical unit, through digital servo control, audio and video decoding, video encoding and a sextuple video Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), to DVD system-level control functions. In addition, the two chips run in a Unified Memory Architecture (UMA), which means they operate together sharing just one SDRAM chip and one Flash memory chip, reducing to the minimum the total number of memory chips.

According to a recent report** from industry analyst Gartner Dataquest, the market for DVD players is expected to enjoy strong growth over the next few years. Already, DVD players have achieved the most successful consumer rollout in history: in their fourth year in the marketplace, DVD players outpaced the initial sales of CD players by 3 to 1 and VCRs by 7 to 1.