"...Oak Technology announced today that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea has signed a volume purchasing agreement for Oak's industry-leading optical storage controllers for integration in Samsung's high-performance CD-RW drives. The parties will negotiate pricing for each purchase at set intervals within prescribed pricing parameters, leading to a potential value of more than $70 million in 2001. The agreement is one of the fruits of a strategic partnership established by the two companies in December 1999 to share technology to create leadership solutions for targeted markets in digital-imaging and optical-storage.
Samsung's Optical Disc Drive Division, ranked as one of the leading manufacturers of optical disk drives worldwide, is using Oak's OTI-9790 optical storage controller in its current line of 8X rewritable compact disc (CD-RW) drives, and plans to incorporate Oak's future optical product families as well, as they become available. According to market research firm IDC, the CD-R/CD-RW market continues to experience rapid growth with annual drive shipments estimated to approach 75 million units in 2003..."