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Last week, Philips Semiconductors announced the CD10 chipset, which the company describes as the world's first two-chip solution to deliver CD-RW (compact disc, re-writeable) compatibility for CD audio players. According to Philips, one chip provides a data amplifier and laser supply circuit, while the other is the digital servo, decoder, and DAC. As a result, Philips claims that the new chipset allows designers to build audio players that can read all forms of CDs without an increase in component count.

Philips' Charles Limonard explains that "many CD players cannot play discs recorded on CD-RW audio recorders. Discs written by CD-RW drives reflect a much lower level of light than pressed CDs or those written with a CD-R recorder, which results in the generation of a lower-level electrical signal. With Philips Semiconductors' CD10 chipset, audio CD players can play home-recorded discs.

"All the major high-end CD-equipment manufacturers are already using Philips Semiconductors' digital servo technology integrated in the CD7 product due to its superior ability to play discs that are damaged or non-standard. The Philips Semiconductors CD10 incorporates this same technology with the added functionality necessary to support CD-RW audio playback."