Audio Video News

Last week, semiconductor developer Silicon Image announced that it has completed the acquisition of DVDO. Silicon Image says that this acquisition positions the company to extend its Digital Visual Interface (DVI) technology leadership beyond the PC market and into emerging digital consumer-electronics applications such as digital TVs, DVD players, and set-top boxes for high-definition video.

DVDO is known to home-theater fans primarily as the manufacturer and distributor of the $699 iScan line doubler, favorably reviewed by Fred Manteghian in the January 2000 Stereophile Guide to Home Theater. Silicon Image states that the transaction will be accounted for as a purchase, and that under the terms of the acquisition, SI will issue approximately 770,000 shares of Common Stock in exchange for all outstanding shares and stock options of DVDO.

SI's Dr. David Lee comments that "this acquisition positions Silicon Image as a premier supplier of semiconductor solutions for PC and consumer-electronics companies who understand and want to leverage the benefits of an all-digital design. DVDO's new all-digital video image processing technology is very synergistic with our DVI technology, and we now have their excellent engineering talent on board at Silicon Image. DVDO's products are targeted at suppliers of digital hosts and entertainment displays for the consumer-electronics market, a mass market we are also targeting with our new High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) technology for DVI."