New era in data storage promised

[Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_464000/464846.stm


Sci/Tech

New era in data storage promised

140GB on a read-only disk 

The US firm C3D Inc showcased new technology on Monday which it
claimed would revolutionise the storage capacities of computer discs
and smart cards.

The firm presented fully-working prototypes of a 140 Gigabyte,
read-only disc and a 10 Gigabyte, read-only card.


C3D is looking for partners to develop the technology and hopes to
have commercial products available within 12 months.

The patented technology uses the properties of fluorescent incoherent
light - light in which the waves are out of step. This allows up to 10
layers of information to be read at once.

This is a substantial step forward on current optical storage
technologies. A 120mm digital versatile disk (DVD) holds about 4.7GB
of information on one of its two sides, or enough for a two-hour
movie. With two layers on each of its two sides, the capacity of a DVD
can be pushed up to about 17GB of video, audio, or other information.

The older CD-ROM will hold just 650 MB. 

Consumer applications 

"This technology will spawn a whole new breed of data
storage-intensive information appliances capable of replicating
today's PC functionality on a palm-sized PDA (personal digital
assistant) or mobile phone," claimed C3D Chief Executive Dr Eugene
Levich, who launched the technology at the company's design Lab in
Rehovoth, Israel.


"The advent of high speed Internet downloading capability and the
arrival of consumer devices such as High Definition TV (requiring up
to 7.5GB per hour recorded), personal VCRs and the e-Book underline
the exponential increase in demand for media with multi-Gigabyte
storage capacity."

Dr Levich said the new Fluorescent Multi-layer Disk (FMD) drives would
all be backwards-compatible, allowing consumers to play their old
disks.

C3D plans to start pilot production of: 

a 10-layer FMD-ROM disk in the standard
120mm (CD & DVD) disk format having up
to140GB capacity; 
a 20-layer FMC ClearCard-ROM in the form of
a credit card having up to 10GB capacity; and 
a 10-layer FMC ClearCard-WORM (Write Once
Read Many) in the form of a credit card having up
to 1GB capacity.

The company claimed second and third generation cards and disks would
have capacities up to and exceeding 1 Terabyte (1,000 Gigabytes). RAM
versions of the disk and card are also planned.