Pioneer develops World’s First 16-Layer Optical Disc with 400 GB capacity

July 07th, 2008 | Category: Gadget Reviews

Pioneer has succeeded in developing a 16-layer read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400 gigabytes for the first instance in the world.. Its per-layer capacity is 25 gigabytes, which is the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc (BD). that multilayer technology will additionally be applicable to multilayer recordable discs. The Pioneer 16-layer optical disc technology, capable of storing much more documents than the conventional discs on one disc, will greatly reduce the number of discs to be used and therefore contribute to the conservation of resources.

Press Release after the Jump

Pioneer will present the details of that research at the universal Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical documents Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008) to be held in Hawaii from July 13.

Tokyo, July 7, 2008 - (JCN Newswire) - Pioneer Corporation has succeeded in developing a 16-layer read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400 gigabytes for the first duration in the world*. Its per-layer capacity is 25 gigabytes, which is the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc (BD). that multilayer technology will plus be applicable to multilayer recordable discs. that development has bolstered Pioneer’s confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become essential in the near future.

For multilayer optical

discs, it has been difficult to obtain clear signals from each recording layer in a stable manner due to crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss. Utilizing the optical disc production technology that it has developed in the DVD field, Pioneer solved these problems by, among other things, using a disc structure that can reduce crosstalk from adjacent layers, resulting in a 16-layer optical disc that can playback high-quality signals from every layer.

As for the read-out system, Pioneer achieved stability in the playback of recorded signals by employing a wide-range spherical aberration compensator and light-receiving element that can read out weak signals at a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism. Since the optical specifications of the objective lens, such as NA (Numerical Aperture)**, are the same as those for the existing BD discs, it is possible to maintain compatibility amidst the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs.

The 16-layer optical disc technology, capable of storing much more input than the conventional discs on one disc, will greatly reduce the number of discs to be used and therefore contribute to the conservation of resources.

Pioneer will present the details of that research at the universal Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical info Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008) to be held in Hawaii from July 13.

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