History (1997): CD-ROM Towards 40X, Even 50X

The sprint is underway for CD-ROM drives: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 16x.

The highest currently offered are at 24X, from such manufacturers as Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsumi, Panasonic, Pioneer and Teac, with outputs ranging from 1.8 to 3.6Mb/s.

And they’re not stopping there. Particularly impressive speed increases are expected on CD-R and CD-RW drives, which at the moment scarcely exceed 6X in CD-ROM, fairly weak for costly devices destined for discerning users who demand more than the average CD-ROM buyer, who is often more concerned with price than performance.

Tools for the upcoming Ferraris of the CD world are on their way.

Oak Technology has unveiled a controller chip, the OTI-012 ($7 in Q10,000), that enables 40X CD-ROM drives, which translates to 6MB/s. In fact, the constant angular velocity is 16X, which in turn gives a 40X rate at the outer tracks of optical media.

Cirrus Logic, not to be outdone, unveiled a 45X (maximum speed) ATAPI CD-ROM decoder with integrated Ultra DMA/33 interface. The CL-CR3430 is priced at $8.50, in Q10,000.

Adaptec, th number one firm in controllers, should offer even better: up to 5OX, thanks to the AIC-9570, an Ultra DMA CDROM controller with an OEM price tag of $10 in large quantity.

This article is an abstract of news published on ≠115 on August 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.