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ISD Announces Up to 25 Percent Price Reductions on
its Chipcorder® PRODUCTS
Price Reductions to Accelerate Proliferation of ISD Voice Record and Playback Semiconductors into Communications, Consumer and Industrial Products
SAN JOSE, Calif., January 31, 1996 - ISD (Information Storage Devices, Inc.), (NASDAQ: ISDI), a leading supplier of semiconductor voice record and playback solutions, today announced it has reduced the list prices of all ChipCorder® devices by up to 25 percent. This price reduction, intended to accelerate proliferation of ISD products by enabling customers to meet lower retail price points, is the result of the company passing on to its customers the cost savings it has incurred due to continuous manufacturing improvements.
"ISD's strategy is to use aggressive pricing to stimulate the creation of new and innovative designs created around ISD ChipCorder products," said David Angel, president and CEO of ISD. "By significantly reducing our pricing for the first time in two years, customers can use the ChipCorder solutions in low and mid range applications as well as high-end products. We expect our new pricing to address the pent up demand for low-cost, high-quality voice record and playback chips in high volume, mainstream consumer products."
"This announcement will be well received by companies that have considered integrating voice record and playback capabilities in mid-range and low-end cellular phones, pocket recorders, answering devices, toys, and other products," said Mark Gaare, industry analyst at Dataquest. "ISD customers will be able to continue to integrate voice capabilities and add value to their products at a very low cost. The move also indicates that ISD is gaining access to key manufacturing capabilities at a time when production facilities are nearly booked."
Examples of new ChipCorder product pricing include:
ISD1110 (in die form) was $4.00 per unit and is now $2.95 per unit
ISD1420 (in die form) was $5.05 and is now $3.95
ISD2560 (in TSOP package) was $15.70 and is now $13.55
ISD2590 (in die form) was $13.85 and is now $11.25
All pricing is based on quantities of 1,000.
ChipCorder Technology
ISD's patented ChipCorder technology is a single-chip solution for voice recording and playback in a variety of consumer, communications and industrial applications. It uses a proprietary "multilevel" storage methodology in which one of more than 250 distinct voltage levels are precisely stored per memory cell. The technology enables voice and audio signals to be stored directly in their natural form into nonvolatile EEPROM memory cells. This provides approximately eight times more storage space for any given memory size than the alternative two-level, digitized signal storage technology. Additionally, ChipCorder products eliminate the need for external A/D and D/A circuits providing a single-chip, solid-state solution that requires no software, unlike other alternatives which are more difficult to integrate.
Furthermore, ChipCorder technology offers high-quality, voice reproduction because the voice signal is stored in its direct form and not encoded or compressed. It is the only single-chip, non-volatile solution available. Recorded messages will be retained even when batteries wear out. ChipCorder devices can be recorded and re-recorded reliably over 100,000 times.
To date, ChipCorder technology has been incorporated into hundreds of products, including cellular phones, pagers, personal voice organizers, telephone answering devices, voice "message pads," games, toys, interactive books, alarms, point-of-sale displays, novelty items, greeting cards and personalized gifts. It is also found in industrial announcement/annunciator systems, instrumentation, and building security systems.
About ISD
ISD designs, develops and markets integrated circuit solutions for voice applications in the consumer, communications and industrial markets.
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