STMicroelectronics just introduced the L6315, which uses 0.18 micron CMOS production technology to integrate all of the functions required in the front end of DVD players, including analog preprocessing, servo control, channel decoding and error correction. Developed in cooperation with Thomson Multimedia, the L6315 supports playback of DVD and CD disk formats, from CD-audio to DVD-RW and DVD+RW playback. The chip integrates a microcontroller, a dedicated core for Digital Signal Processing, an analog interface that connects to the photo-detector on DVD pick-ups, and the digital circuits needed to perform functions like channel decoding and error correction. According to STM, DVD players have two basic subsystems known as the front-end and the back-end. The front-end handles all of the functions required to extract the compressed MPEG data stream from the received signal, while the back-end decodes the MPEG data to recreate the original content. In conjunction with an external memory, the L6315 handles the error correction function and connects to back-end devices like the STi5508/STi5519, while the Unified Memory mode is designed to eliminate the need for external front-end memory when the device is combined with the OMEGA family back-end devices that will be introduced by STM in the near future. Housed in a TQFP144 package, the L6315 is available now. It's also supported by an emulation version in a TQFP176 package, an evaluation board, and associated software tools for applications development.