TDK Corp has unveiled a 1TB optical disc that can be used in applications as diverse as home recording, data backup, and broadcasting, Nikkei Electronics reports.
The new disc features 16 recording layers, each with 32GB of capacity per side. That's four times the maximum number of layers on a Blu-ray disc, and 20 times the total storage capacity of the average Blu-ray disc.
TDK's new optical disc features a new material with a higher light transmittance: 95.1 percent per layer, or 72.6 percent through all 16 layers. TDK displayed the disc at the Ceatac Japan 2010 trade show last week.
Both discs also use beams with the same numerical aperture of 0.85. As a result, TDK forecasts that many existing Blu-ray manufacturing techniques will also apply for its new disc. "The material has already been used for part of a Blu-ray disc," TDK said in a statement. "So, it does not have a problem of, for example, durability."
TDK has pretty much solved everything necessary for mass production, including read times and error rates. The one remaining hurdle is the disc thickness, according to the report.
"According to the specifications of the Blu-ray Disc, the thickness of a recording layer has to be 100μm or less," TDK said. "But the recording layer of the new disc is 260μm in thickness. And it causes the aberration of an optical lens."
There's no word yet on which manufacturers will be the first to take TDK up on its new optical disc.
Source:http://www.extremetech.com
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