Boston, MA - 7 January 2008 - Strategy Analytics analyst Asif Anwar forecasts that expansion of high definition (HD) into the gaming, PC and home theatre markets will drive the growth of GaN laser diodes, whichever standard prevails.

Currently the high growth of the GaN-based laser diode market is driven by the huge demand for Read-Only units in the next generation of games consoles - Sony's Playstation 3 (PS3) and Microsoft's Xbox 360. Moving forward, the sustainable opportunity for next generation optical storage Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats will be in the home theatre and PC markets.

"Ultimately, it will be the consumer who dictates a winner. The final outcome will be based on content availability, storage capacity, backwards compatibility, hardware price, and content protection," notes Asif Anwar. "The home theatre and the PC markets will propel demand for the GaN-based LDs once the gaming console market matures. Suppliers of GaN laser diodes will be winners no matter which format wins."

Strategy Analytics analysis on GaN laser diode markets is available in the report, "Gallium Nitride Laser Diodes: Markets and Applications 2006-2011," at www.strategyanalytics.net