Philips and BenQ join forces

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and BenQ Corporation of Taiwan announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to co-operate in the development of next generation optical storage data drives for the PC industry.

This agreement, building on an existing supplier relationship, is expected to give both companies a time-to-market advantage in optical storage products,initially focusing on DVD+RW drives for the data market.

Philips will focus on developing the optical storage solutions, whilst BenQ will deliver speed improvements as the technology becomes more mature.

The joint agreement will see the establishment of a dedicated design house, focused on developing turnkey drive designs, using Philips' reference designs, chipsets, OPU's and other components for next generations of the DVD+RW data product family.