phase 5 digital products, located in Oberursel near Frankfurt, Germany, is a hardware manufacturing company founded in 1992 and 100% privately held by it's founders G.W.C. and W.D., who are heading the company as the management. The company started as a dedicated hardware developer and manufacturer of Amiga add-ons, and has become a leading vendor of CPU Accelerators, Graphic Expansion Boards and SCSI Controllers for the Amiga platform, who has shipped some 60,000 products into this market since late 1995. Leading products and innovations such as the first 68060 Accelerators for Amiga computers, the first 32-bit Zorro-III DMA SCSI controllers for A3000/A4000 systems, the succesful Blizzard series of inexpensive high-quality accelerators for A1200 and A2000 systems, or the powerful CyberVision Graphic card family and the CyberGraphX V3 RTG standard define the milestones of development for which the company received 20 Product of the Year Awards by leading magazines since 1992. With new development projects integrating the PowerPC RISC processor into accelerator boards for Amiga computers as well as Apple Macintosh systems, and the new ASE (Advanced Silicon Engineering) Group which is assigned to ASIC research and development phase 5 digital products underscores it's company profile as a highly innovative company, which is based on the business philosophy that continous product innovation is the key for a succesful future, and that a market for alternative technology will continue to exist.            phase 5 digital products is located in Oberursel, Germany, approximately 10 minutes away from Frankfurt and 15 minutes away from the Rhein-Main International Airport. In it's headquarters, which cover 960 squaremeter office space on two floors of a modern office building a team of currently about 20 employees (not considering external software developers) is working in the departments development, sales, service and support. In an additional service area covering appx. 600 square meters the phase 5 Elektronikfertigung GmbH, a sister company founded in 1996, provides high-quality electronics manufacturing with an additonal staff of 7 employees. As an overview, the phase 5 group currently focuses on the following operations: Amiga Hardware Development, Distribution and Support phase 5 digital products remains to be dedicated to the Amiga computer and the Amiga community, with the goal to support the active user base with powerful and innovative products. As a major breakthrough phase 5 digital products is going to introduce a new series of advanced PowerPC based accelerators, which operate as dual-processor systems in order to offer breath-taking performance enhancements combined with a 100% compatibility to the existing OS and applications. With a strong support for software developers worldwide by providing development systems and tools phase 5 digital products actively supports the introducion of a new software generation that can make use of the significant performance increases which are possible with the PowerUp Accelerators. MacIntosh add-on development and distribution Using it's comprehensive design know-how and the experience with 68k and PowerPC processors, phase 5 digital products has created a series of PowerPC Accelerator Boards for Apple Macintosh Computers, which has been succesfully introduced to the market. As a spin-off of other technology projects, phase 5 digital products plans to expand the Macintosh add-on product portfolio in the future. System Design and Development Preparing the step from a vendor of hardware add-on products to a computer system vendor, phase 5 digital products has taken an extraordinary approach by starting the design of a new and innovative computer system under the project name A\\BOX. A major aspect of the design goals for this system is the realisation and integration of innovative design concepts which are not found today in standard PC or Macintosh compatibles, by use of custom chips especially designed for this system (see below). ASIC Development Following the philosophy that real innovation today and in the future can only be realized on chip level, phase 5 digital products has set up it's ASE (Advanced Silicon Engineering) Group in 1996. This group does ASIC reaearch and design, and is assigned to innovative projects such as the CAIPIRINHA custom chip development, which are considered to be the key projects for the future development of the company and it's products such as the A\\BOX computer system. High-Quality Electronics Manufacturing In 1996, the phase 5 Elektronikfertigung GmbH has been founded as an independent subsidary of phase 5 digital products, and is also 100% privately held by it's founders G.W.C. and W.D.. This company provides electronics manufacturing services in it's modern facilities at the same location as the phase 5 digital products headquarters. Using a fully automized SMT manufacturing line, phase 5 Elektronikfertigung GmbH provides the following services: High quality SMT production including fine-pitch and BGA assembly, with an assembly capacity of up to 80,000 SMD components per day Highest accuracy SMD placement with a 40 micrometer accuracy SMT assembly machine with laser and vision controlled component positioning systems, integrated into a fully automatic production line High quality solder pasting via a fully automatic and vision-controlled in-line solder paste system Environmental-friendly vapor-phase reflow soldering system for perfect SMT soldering of modern package types such as BGA and fine-pitch High quality conventional through-hole soldering with a computer-controlled dual-wave soldering line Inspection and testing, visual control Production-related mechanical services Fast and flexible just-in-time production The phase 5 Elektronikfertigung GmbH is doing all assembly of the products of phase 5 digital products, as well as assembly service for other companies, with a just-in-time service that is competitive in the world market and - respecting the responsibility of the industry for environmentally friendly activities - under high consideration of todays's ecological aspects.