Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[AKvetch]

ZRAN, ESST, MediaTek. IBD article.

JLSegal, you wrote Zeev, interesting article in today's (9/16/02) IBD regarding DVD chip sales regarding new competition for ZRAN and ESST. MediaTek has a product that combines processing and video on one chip (used to take 2), neither ESST or ZRAN have such a product, but are working on one. (ESST expects to offer it's single chip device, Vibratto II, by the end of the year)

Here are snippets from recent press releases from ZRAN and ESST to clarify their status on the 1-chip solution:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Zoran Corporation (Nasdaq: ZRAN - News) announced that its sixth generation Vaddis 6 is a complete advanced DVD system-on-a-chip (SOC) solution, which integrates the DVD front end and back end functions on a single chip. Sample quantities are now shipping to major DVD player manufacturers.
…

Vaddis 6 is designed for OEMs to easily migrate from previous Vaddis DVD solutions, allowing a quick time to market. Zoran expects that Vaddis 6-based DVD systems will begin to ship towards the end of the year.

[the entire ZRAN press release is posted in #msg-496840]

FREMONT, Calif., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-
…

Robert Blair, president and CEO of ESS Technology commented, "As we go into the Christmas season, we are now finding worldwide demand has slowed down surprisingly in the latter part of the quarter. We are also experiencing increased competition from suppliers who offer an integrated front-end servo and MPEG decoder solution and we are seeing a faster than expected transition to this new integrated solution. This has increased pressure on average selling prices, and we expect fourth quarter prices to fall 10% to 15% from the third quarter. We plan to ship our own integrated solution, the Vibratto II, in the fourth quarter."

Mr. Blair continued, "Although the industry is now facing an overall slowdown, ESS continues to gain design wins in Japan and Korea with our existing full-featured Vibratto family of products. We believe the introduction of our new integrated Vibratto II servo-decoder product family will enable ESS to gain market share and continue its leadership position in the digital entertainment market."

[the entire ESST press release is posted in #msg-496808]

Because I have not seen the IBD article, I hope the above snippets are helpful.

AK

p.s. MediaTek is a Taiwanese company. Here is a link to their product lines as well as other company information:
http://www.mtk.com.tw/product_lines.htm