e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tinroad]

The Future Of Burning
Smaller, Faster & Cheaper
http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fg0905%2F07g05%2F07g...

Compact disc technology has become perhaps the world’s most commonly used technology for storing removable data. Music and other types of audio are now sold almost exclusively on CD-ROM discs. These discs are the medium of choice for delivering software to your computer. You probably already know the benefits of burning, or creating, personal CDs if you have a CD-R (CD-recordable) or CD-RW (CD-rewriteable) drive in your system.

While CD optical technology is king for now, we all know it won’t always be on top. Some day even CDs will seem as ancient as the common 3.5-inch floppy diskette or an eight-track tape. (We’re sorry to break this to you, but your old eight-track copy of Grand Funk Railroad isn’t cutting edge anymore.)

If you’re looking for the next great optical storage medium, your first thought probably would be with DVD (digital versatile disc). That’s a good choice; DVD players and DVD drives are quickly growing in popularity, thanks to the ability of DVD discs to store at least seven times more data than 650MB CD-ROMs.

We find that even as DVD moves toward becoming the most popular optical storage medium, its days are also numbered. Other types of removable storage are still in the development stage, but they could ascend to the throne in just a few years.

Fluorescent Technology. In CD technology, as it applies to CD-ROM and writeable CDs, the data is stored just under the surface of the CD in a single layer. In DVD technology, the data is stored more compactly on one or two layers of the disc. CDs are limited to about 650MB of data, while single-layer DVDs can store from 4.7GB of data (or 4,700MB) up to 17GB.

A company called Constellation 3D uses a technology called fluorescent multi-layer to expand the ability of the disc to hold data. A fluorescent multi-layer disc, also called an FMD disc by Constellation 3D, stores data in multiple layers of the transparent FMD disc.

CD and DVD lenses use measurements of reflections from the optical discs to read their data. But, as you add layers to a CD or DVD disc, the signal created by the reflection is weakened and diffused; this leaves the lens unable to read the data properly. Fluorescent technology doesn’t use a reflection and this lets it read through multiple layers without a weakening of the signal.

Data is written to each layer on an FMD disc in a manner similar to a CD or DVD by using a series of microscopic holes burned into the material. (The mixture of holes, or pits, and unburned areas, or lands, represents the data). See "White Paper: CD & DVD Writing" for more detailed information.

Constellation 3D expects each layer of the FMD disc to hold about 4.7GB of data, similar to a single-layer DVD disc, but the similarities end there. Rather than the reflective layer used with a DVD disc, an FMD disc uses a transparent fluorescent material to coat each layer. When the laser from the lens strikes the data, it creates fluorescent light. A lens then reads the disc by measuring the fluorescent materials’ color and intensity. Through these measurements, the lens can decode the data properly, determining exactly which layer it is reading. The various layers don’t diffuse fluorescent light and this enables the drive to read the disc without disturbance. Fluorescent light also has a different wavelength than laser light, and this lets the drive filter out the laser light before it reads the data.

Manufacturers are building DataPlay drives, called micro-optical engines, into several different types of portable devices and will be available through a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection for your computer. The tiny DataPlay discs are only slightly larger than a quarter.

By storing data in several layers—basically, in a three-dimensional format—far more data can be stored on an FMD disc that remains about the same physical size as a CD or DVD disc. You can think of an FMD disc as optical media containing a series of extremely thin storage shelves.

Constellation 3D anticipates up to 100 layers eventually could be used with the FMD discs. Constellation 3D estimates a single FMD disc could store more than 1TB (terabyte) in future years by using the correct combination of blue laser light (currently not feasible) and fluorescent technology. That’s equal to 1,000GB, or about 220 times the storage capacity of a single-layer DVD disc.

With FMD, data could be transferred much more quickly than with CD and DVD. FMD technology would allow for reading multiple layers simultaneously, and Constellation 3D estimates data could be transferred at almost 1GB per second.

Constellation 3D, which also is developing a credit card-sized device using FMD technology and designed for mobile devices, hopes the first FMD products will be available by mid-2002. Constellation 3D expects its first FMD discs to store about 100GB.



DataPlay. You’re probably already ready to explore the DataPlay digital media if you’ve wished you could carry your collection of favorite CDs in your pocket along with the collections of a few other friends. DataPlay is another seemingly futuristic storage option, giving you the ability to store up to 500MB of data (about three-fourths of the capacity of a CD) on a media disc only slightly larger than a quarter. (That’s a quarter, as in a 25-cent piece.)

DataPlay introduced its technology at the January 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. It had those in attendance buzzing, and with good reason. Obviously, the ability to store massive amounts of data on miniature discs could revolutionize several types of digital hardware devices. Potential uses for DataPlay media include many types of portable hardware uses, including handheld PDAs (personal digital assistants), audio players, digital cameras, video cameras, Web-enabled handhelds, and digital e-books.

Consumers could use the technology to create personal discs, or they could purchase mass-distributed DataPlay discs. In some instances, using a technology called ContentKey, consumers would purchase a prerecorded DataPlay disc containing a wide variety of data. To activate only the data desired, consumers would log onto the Internet and purchase a code to unlock the desired data from the DataPlay disc. This feature, for example, would allow an e-book publisher to publish dozens of titles on a single DataPlay disc; the consumer then would only pay for and activate specific titles.

The DataPlay disc, known as miniature optical media, is similar to a miniature DVD disc; it uses similar burning techniques to create the discs. You can burn each DataPlay disc in a DataPlay drive, called a micro-optical engine. All DataPlay drives, which are slightly larger than a matchbook, will have both reading and writing capabilities. The DataPlay drive should be able to write data to a DataPlay disc at speeds of up to 1MB per second.

DataPlay drives purchased for use with your computer will connect to your PC or Macintosh through the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port. You then can copy content from your computer to a DataPlay disc. DataPlay is also selling its micro-optical engines to makers of several types of digital hardware, such as PDAs or digital music players, for inclusion in their hardware devices.

You can only write to the DataPlay discs once, similar to a CD-R disc. DataPlay has indicated a rewriteable disc may be introduced in the future, though. We expect DataPlay discs and hardware devices to be available in the United States in mid- to late-2001, although some devices are already in use in Asia. One such device offers a variety of features, including functioning as a digital camera, MP3 player, cellular phone, and wireless Web browser. In the United States, each 500MB DataPlay disc should cost approximately $10, while a drive would cost around $150.

The Future. The technologies discussed above seem futuristic, but plans to improve on them have already been discussed. DataPlay, for example, hopes to further enhance its media in the next few years to allow for several gigabytes of data to be stored per disc. And in fluorescent technology, a Romanian scientist, Dr. Eugen Pavel, is discussing Hyper CD-ROM technology, which reportedly can hold up to 10TB of data on a single disc, while remaining similar in size to a CD-ROM disc (but about 10mm thick).

These aren’t the only high-capacity, removable storage options currently being developed, but they are the types generating the most excitement. We probably won’t know whether these or other technologies will actually enjoy widespread use for several years. No technology, no matter how promising, can enjoy wide deployment without the backing of hardware manufacturers and without a realistic price point for consumers. If Constellation 3D or DataPlay can achieve both of those points, they might be able to take their technologies to the king’s throne.