Actel Dominant in MP3 World

Electronic News, May 8, 2000 by Peter Brown

Actel Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif., last week claimed that by the end of the first quarter it had shipped more than one million total FPGAs into the digital MP3 Internet audio player/recorder market. Citing research from Cahners In-Stat Group estimating more than 750,000 MP3 players/recorders were sold in 1999, Actel says its shipments to this market substantiate the number. Actel's MX family of FPGAs has been used in both the Rio 300 and Rio 500 digital audio MP3 players, both from S3 Corp.'s Diamond Multimedia Division. The company claims the two devices are the fastest selling MP3 players on the market. Beyond that, Actel claims to have its FPGAs designed into more than 20 MP3 player applications around the world, most of which are either in production today or will be soon. Actel said that to preserve its leadership position, it is seeking new design wins and is working to develop FPGAs that will power the next generation of MP3 players. Actel said its current design wins have come at the expense of the ASICs traditionally used in these types of applications.

Alcatel, Fujitsu Team for Mobile Comm

Alcatel USA Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. have established a joint venture to develop and manufacture next-generation mobile communications network systems, Electronics Weekly reports. With more than 2,000 engineers, the joint venture will concentrate on product marketing, R&D, and manufacturing for mobile communications radio infrastructure including GSM, its different evolutions including GPRS and EDGE, and third-generation (3G) systems, also known as IMT2000. "This alliance is a major step forward for Alcatel's mobile activities. The creation of an Alcatel-Fujitsu company offers the opportunity to have a UMTS offering ahead of the competition, while ensuring efficient and cost-effective use of R&D resources and skills," said Jean-Pierre Halbron, senior executive vice president of Alcatel. The new company will be majority-owned by Paris, France-based Alcatel, which will hold 66 percent of the shares, with Fujitsu holding the remainder. Fujitsu, based in Tokyo, has experience working with Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo in the development of UMTS, while Alcatel brings GSM and asynchronous transfer mode/Internet Protocol expertise to the venture. The aim is to have the first 3G offering (UMTS) ready for deployment by the first half of 2001.

LG Electronics, Oak Enter DVD Agreement

Oak Technology Inc., Sunnyvale Calif., and LG Electronics Co. Ltd., Seoul, Korea, have entered into a strategic partnership targeted at creating platform offerings for the optical storage market and information appliances. Under terms of the agreement, both companies will use their optical storage technology to create products for information appliances and to develop new DVD and CD-RW technologies. The agreement expands a previous agreement regarding optical storage. "Oak Technology and LGE agree that there is a strong push for both the PC and consumer markets to converge around applications that link the Internet and the consumer,'' said Young Sohn, Oak president and chief executive officer. "We see recordable optical technologies as the essential enabling element driving the future of digital media applications for the PC and consumer markets. The synergy between LGE's commitment to being a systems leader in the delivery of content to the PC and consumer markets and Oak's expertise in optical recording and compression technologies creates a solid foundation for Oak and LGE to drive the information appliance market.''