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New Digitalway HD200 portable music juke box !!!

Texas Instruments and CORNICE Enable Higher Storage Capacities and Lower Costs for Portable Consumer Electronics

Monday June 2, 12:00 pm ET

HOUSTON, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- By leveraging its expertise in storage solutions and portable consumer electronics, Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN - News; TI), today announced that it is working with CORNICE, Inc. on their 1.5GB Storage Element (SE). The SE, a 1-inch, high-capacity, embedded storage device, is designed to bring low cost storage solutions to portable consumer electronics devices such as MP3 players, PDAs, digital video recorders and players, and handheld gaming devices. (See

The CORNICE SE is designed to revolutionize the capabilities and functionality of consumer devices by providing gigabytes of extremely affordable storage when compared to today's flash memory solutions. A flash card that offers comparable capacity typically costs between $400 and $500 retail in addition to the cost of the portable device. The price of the SE enables CORNICE customers to deliver their products to consumers at well under the retail cost of a similar flash-based device.

TI expertise enables innovative storage solution for portable applications

'TI brings systems expertise on multiple levels to our Storage Element. Our objective was to design a highly reliable, low cost, small form factor storage device and by leveraging their hard disk drive (HDD) and consumer electronics systems expertise, we were able to deliver a unique and innovative storage architecture,' said Kevin Magenis, CORNICE founder, president and CEO. He went onto say, 'By working very closely with an industry leader such as TI, CORNICE was able to achieve the cost, quality, and competitiveness that we needed to take advantage of the growing market for compact, high-capacity storage technologies.'

TI's chipset solution consists of a custom TMS320C2000(TM) platform DSP controller, SR1740 pre-amp, and SH2100 servo controller. The DSP controller performs real time signal processing for, among other things, read/write positioning, error correction and control (ECC) and buffer management in addition to providing the interface to the Storage Element. This industry unique solution incorporates the DSP on the host, not the storage device, allowing for a higher level of future integration.

The SR1740 preamp was designed with the specific needs of the 1 inch form factor market in mind, resulting in a pseudo-differential, low power, low cost preamp that is now offered as part of TI's standard catalog of preamp products. Similarly, the SH2100 servo controller was specifically designed for low voltage and small form-factor applications. Containing the digital interface logic and other utility functions required in this drive, the SH2100 is a highly integrated solution that complements the rest of the chip set and turns it into a complete solution.

Innovative approach to classic HDD electronics

'Larger, desktop PC hard drives often utilize an electronics architecture that integrates around the read channel integrated circuit (IC),' said Kenneth Nesteroff, storage DSP manager, TI. 'However, when CORNICE targeted the portable consumer electronics market for their 1 inch SE, they seized a prime opportunity to differentiate their electronics architecture to better meet the requirements unique to these non-PC applications. The result is a repartition of classic HDD electronics that enables a cost-effective and technologically advanced chipset solution.'

TI's programmable DSP and analog solutions for portable audio, imaging, and video encoding and decoding, provide support for the CORNICE Storage Element in addition to other industry standard storage solutions. 'Continuing its commitment to the multimedia jukebox market, TI is addressing the primary concerns of its customers -- form factor and cost,' said Chris Schairbaum, business manager of portable audio and infotainment at TI. 'We feel CORNICE's new Storage Element will help boost growth in the portable multimedia player market and we look forward to working with CORNICE and seeing it implemented in our customers' latest products.'

The CORNICE Storage Element is already shipping in volume quantities and will be available in portable consumer products including Rio® Nitrus Urban and Eigen Executive portable digital audio players, iRiver's iGP-100 digital audio player and Digitalway's HS100 portable USB storage unit and HD200 portable music juke box beginning in early June through August.
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Digitalway is making the IFE device and the larger 01000. What makes you think they are entitled to make the smaller model? Perhaps, just perhaps, the end user (whatever brand it turns out to be) uses this other Asian OEM to manufacture their devices. Were we supposed to say "sorry, but you go with our manufacturer or nothing"... didn't think so!
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The march of the mini music drives
Last modified: October 22, 2003, 2:43 PM PDT
By Ed Frauenheim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

http://www.agoracom.com/nonmemforum/msgreview.asp?id=288189&refid=0&orig=288189


Look out iPod.

Apple Computer's popular portable music player should start to see increasing competition, as more manufacturers adopt mini hard drives for music players.

Later this month, Dell is expected to include a 1.8-inch hard drive in its Dell Digital Jukebox portable MP3 player. That would essentially match the size of an iPod's hard drive. Meanwhile, Samsung and others are promoting players with a still-smaller drive from start-up company CORNICE.

The push toward miniaturization is possible, because more companies are getting into the small-drive business. Toshiba was the first major manufacturer of these drives, and Apple was able to obtain the bulk of the drives Toshiba produced.

Disk drive maker Hitachi Global Storage Technologies recently entered the fray. Hitachi has shipped 1.8-inch drives for an MP3 player made by Rio, and its 1-inch Microdrive is an option in MP3 devices other companies offer. A Hitachi spokesman said the company plans to announce next Tuesday that a music player made by a ''household name'' is using Hitachi drives with a 1.8-inch diameter. The spokesman declined to specify the customer.

CORNICE also hopes its drives will rock the music-player market. CORNICE has launched a 1-inch drive, which is being used in MP3 players from Rio and RCA. The drive is also part of a Samsung product that acts as a digital camcorder, digital still camera and MP3 player. The Samsung gadget is expected to be released next year.

A 1.8-inch hard drive has a 40GB capacity, which can translate into more than 650 hours of music. CORNICE's 1-inch drive holds 1.5GB of data, about 26 hours of music, according to the company. A portable music player that uses flash memory rather than a hard drive can be more compact but will hold less data.

''In a number of months, we're going to be announcing more MP3 customers,'' CORNICE spokesman Phil Gomes said. Gomes declined to specify how many of its drives have shipped so far, but he said CORNICE's main manufacturing partner is very busy churning out the drives. ''The factories are running full-out right now in Asia,'' Gomes said. ''Demand has been very high.''

Consumer electronics giant Sony said it is looking at the possibility of hard drive-based music players but that it has no plans to come out with one for the foreseeable future. Instead, the Japanese giant will concentrate for now on portable music devices that depend on minidiscs, flash memory or CDs, a Sony representative said.

Interest in hard drives for portable music players comes amid growing demand for disk drives in relatively new consumer applications such as personal video recorders. A burgeoning consumer electronics market for hard drives is one reason the hard-drive industry is enjoying a sunny outlook.

Research firm IDC expects the number of hard drives shipped in portable MP3 players to hit 1.8 million this year, up from 900,000 last year. In 2004, it expects the number to climb to 2.4 million.

IDC analyst Dave Reinsel said Toshiba, Hitachi and CORNICE could find the personal music player arena more crowded still. ''I certainly could imagine a Seagate'' introducing a drive for the market, Reinsel said.

Although the music player market for hard drives is growing rapidly, it is a small fraction of the overall hard drive industry. IDC expects a total of more than 250 million hard drives to be shipped this year.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst with research firm the Enderle Group, said the CORNICE product combines a relatively low cost with low power usage and robustness--meaning that the drive can survive a fair amount of physical abuse.

On the other hand, CORNICE is competing with established manufacturers that offer products with more capacity. In addition, Hitachi is planning to release an upgraded 1-inch drive soon. That drive is now being tested by MP3 makers and holds 4GB, or 75 hours, of high-quality digital music, according to Hitachi. Hitachi has been selling a 1-inch drive with 1GB.

Dell and other manufacturers will also have to contend with the intangibles of the consumer electronics market. Style and design are big in that market. Apple has historically shown that it has a knack for design, something for which Dell is not known. Apple has also persuaded companies to build add-on devices, such as microphones, for the iPod.

Hard drives are one method of providing storage in portable music players. Flash memory, which involves holding data on silicon chips, is another. But flash memory is more expensive than hard drives on a per-megabyte basis, Enderle said. Although flash memory costs are declining, Enderle doesn't expect the price per megabyte to reach that of hard drives ''for another three to five years--if then.''