Atmel, the same firm known for cranking out
uber-small GPS chips, has now created the "industry's smallest laser diode driver solution" for HD DVD, Blu-ray, DVD, and CD formats. The ATR0881 laser diode driver IC is available now and is designed for use in combination drives that play nice with all of the aforementioned discs. Notably, the ATR0881 itself is housed in a minuscule four- x four-millimeter QFN24 package, and should prove extremely useful in half-height combo drives as well as slim drives found in laptops. Smaller optical drives that handle every format
harmoniously? Count us in.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tranzparentl @ Jul 24th 2007 11:29AM
I have said before and I have said again. A year or 2 from now every single drive will read both formats. (Except maybe Sony/Toshiba drives)
Tauron @ Jul 24th 2007 11:58AM
I have to agree with you. Same thing happened with DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W). Both formats were competing with each other, now both formats co-exist. Same thing can happen with high-def DVD's.
RaynorWolfcastle @ Jul 24th 2007 3:06PM
Re: drives that read all formats.
Apart from being smaller, this diode doesn't really bring anything new in terms of diodes for HD DVD and Blu-Ray. In fact, in terms of the laser diode both HD DVD and Blu-Ray are identical (they use the same blue-violet laser). The challenge in making dual format drives is designing the collimating optics because the physical disc structure differs significantly between the two HD formats.
This is why dual format drives are significantly more expensive than HD DVD only or Blu-Ray only drives; you basically have to either shove in two sets of optics or you have to use some sort of fancy reconfigurable optics. With HD DVD, DVD, and CD only drives, the disc structure is close enough that it's not a problem to use one set of optics. Blu-Ray makes more stringent (and different) requirements on the optics so that it can achieve the higher data density. The laser diode doesn't change though...
tranzparentl @ Jul 24th 2007 3:12PM
Maybe true but both of LGs new drives read both formats. One starts at $400 and after a few months I'm sure will be even cheaper than that.