Pioneer claims to have created the world's first 400GB disc

A new generation of high-capacity optical discs in the making as Pioneer, a electronic giant; claims to have made the world's first disc(400GB 16-layeredread-only). The technology employs 25GB storage space on each layer, and the disc being 16-layered; this sums up to a massive 400GB disc space. Pioneer trying to be very secretive; did not even mention technology employed- Blue laser or Red laser. However, Pioneer stated that the 16-layer discs would be “compatible” with current BD discs.

In a press release, Pioneer stated that “this development has bolstered Pioneer's confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become necessary in the near future.” For now, the company has only succeeded in creating a 16-layer read-only optical disc, but the company believes that it can transfer the technology to recordable discs as well.


Sony previously noted that Blu-ray could be scalable to up to eight to ten layers or 200 to 250 GB. However, multiple layers weaken signals from each recording layer and the industry has found it to be increasingly difficult to receive clear signals in a stable manner within multi-layer discs due to crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss. Pioneer claims it has solved this problem using a disc structure that can reduce crosstalk from adjacent layers as well as 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.

Pioneer said it will provide more details of its 16-layer technology on July 13 at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 in Hawaii.