While Sony now is outsourcing its production of new DVD writers to Taiwanese companies such as AccessTek (and for later models possibly Lite-On) it looks like Sony's first dual layer writer will still be made by Sony. According to German website Heise Online it will be named DRU-700A and support 8x write speed for single layer media and 2.4x write speed for DVD+R9 media. The DRU-700A is expected to be released in April.

Sony Germany could not confirm the suspension of DVD burner manufacturing on demand of Heise online. So the DVD burner DRU-700A is to appear in April 2004, which burns single layer discs with 8X and dual layer (DVD+R9) with 2.4X. According to Sony Germany at least this model will be manufactured by the Japanese company and not bought from an OEM.

 

There have been a lot of rumors regarding dual layer recording lately but hopefully we will see the first dual layer writers in Q2 next year.

You'll find the complete article in German here or in (bad) Babelfish translation here.  

Source: Heise Online