Optiarc is a brand of

optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only r ...

s and

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It i ...

s. It is owned by a US-based Vinpower Digital, Inc. Initially Optiarc was established on April 3, 2006 as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

(55% shares) and NEC (45% shares). The company, named Sony NEC Optiarc, focused on manufacturing optical disk drives primarily for the OEM desktop and

notebook PC A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

markets. On September 11, 2008, it was announced that Sony would take over NEC's 45% share, making Optiarc a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony, to be called Sony Optiarc. This took effect on December 5, 2008 In March 2013, Sony closed its Optiarc optical disc drive division, laying off about 400 employees globally. In 2017, an American company, Vinpower Digital, whose main business is manufacturing optical disc and other media duplicators for the commercial market, acquired the rights to the Optiarc brand and product line. The brand PioData is also owned by Vinpower Digital.

Products

Products were both DVD+/-R(W) and

BD-ROM The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of stori ...

drives. Among other things, Sony Optiarc supplied the Blu-ray drives for the Sony PlayStation 3. The naming scheme for the drives is as follows: DDU stands for DVD-ROM, AD stands for DVD-RW, BR for BD-ROM and BC for BD Combo. A combo drive is a drive that only supports the newer format in reading and the predecessor in writing. The three digits that follow indicate the generation, the design (5.25" or slimline) and the speed class. The digit after that the equipment variant and the appended letter the interface. An AD-7243S is a 5.25" DVD-RW Drive with 24x speed when writing to DVD-R and DVD+R blanks. It also supports Labelflash. For Lightscribe, a "1" would be in the fourth position. The "S" indicates SATA. An “A” stands for PATA. However, the last Optiarc drives were no longer available with this legacy interface.

References

External links

* Companies established in 2006 Computer storage companies Electronics companies of Japan Former NEC subsidiaries Joint ventures Optical computer storage Former Sony subsidiaries Technology companies disestablished in 2013 {{Brand stub

Products

See also

Similar joint ventures

References

External links