Sony ups blue-violet laser production capacity to 1.7m per month
Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor Inc of Japan has claimed an industry-leading 1.7 million blue-violet laser diodes can be produced each month, with production capacity set to increase by installing front-end wafer processing equipment capable of producing 5 million diodes per month.
This month it also started shipping lasers with an output power of 170mW for recording, with 240mW lasers coming in November.
At first glance, not the most exciting news, but last year's shortage of diodes was partly to blame for a slow rollout of PS3s, and both Blu-ray and HD DVD players, so more capacity and higher powered lasers means more high definition players and burners rolling out.
