Sharp announced a new series of IC's, allowing 16x DVD recording. The first samples of the "GA301TXW1MZ" will be available in Japan by the middle of November, at a price of 200 Yen. Mass production is planned by December 26, and the estimated product volume will be 5,000 per month.

The new IC will be formalized under the OPIC (Optical IC) trademark, already registered by Sharp. It offers 16x maximum DVD recording speed for all DVD formats (DVD+R/+RW/-R/-RW), while is also capable of 60x maximum writing for CD-R/RW and 16x DVD-ROM reading. Note that according to the manufacturer of each DVD writer, those specifications can be different.