Cheertek, a spin-off of Taiwan-based IDM (integrated device manufacturer) Winbond Electronics, began operations this month. The company is set to introduce samples of its DVD player servo chips in May, and roll out chips for CD-R drives later this year. Cheertek said that completing its DVD player and CD-R drive chip lines would be its development priority in 2002. Previously the multimedia product division of Winbond, Cheertek was set up on January 1 and will be capitalized at NT$400 million by the end of April. The company’s three major product lines are DVD player controller ICs, VCD logic ICs and CD-R drive controller ICs.

The company said that its DVD player servo chips will first target the low and medium-price consumer electronics market.

As for production, Cheertek president Archie Yeh said that the company would gradually adopt 0.25 and 0.18-micron process technologies. At present, it is not considering placing orders to foundries in China, given that overall yield rates there are not completely trusted by its clients and production fees are not necessarily cheap either.

The multimedia chip market has been a burgeoning field lately. In addition to IC designers like Mediatek, chipset companies such as VIA Technologies and Acer Laboratories (ALi) have also been cutting into the market.