Optware looks to standardise holographic storage
Optware looks to standardise holographic storage
Jan 06, 2005: Holographic information storage developer Optware Corporation plans to blaze a trail by becoming the first company to create an industry standard for holographic storage.
Optware, together with a number of its partners, including Fuji Photo Film, CMC Magnetics and Strategic Media Technology, announced that international ICT standards body Ecma International has approved the creation of a new Technical Committee to undertake standardisation of Holographic Information Storage Systems, initially based upon Optware's technology.
The Scope of TC44, as the committee will be known, is to maintain an overall view and strategy for standardisation in the field of holographic information storage systems, and to identify and develop standards, technical reports and guidelines in this field.
The committee will work on a number of projects, including Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) cartridges with 200 Gbytes of capacity per cartridge; a 100 Gbyte version of HVD; a credit card-sized Holographic Versatile Card (HVC) with 30 Gbytes capacity per card; and a case for 120mm HVD read-only disks. Specifications for all of the new projects are earmarked to be finalised by the end of 2006.
Yoshio Aoki, president and CEO of Optware, noted that Ecma is the inventor and main practitioner of fast tracking of specifications through the standardization process in global standards bodies like the ISO, and that since its start in 1987, over 196 (more than 80 percent) of the 232 submissions for fast-track processing in JTC-1 have come from Ecma International, including virtually all of the DVD standards.
"The fact that Ecma has created TC44, a completely new Technical Committee separate and apart from its Optical Disk TC31, gives added visibility to the emergence of holographic storage and marks a timely fulfillment of an urgent market requirement, which demonstrates the vital role of Ecma International in the innovation cycle of information storage" said Aoki.
Aoki added: "We are particularly gratified that Ecma has chosen to start its standardisation work with projects that make use of our proprietary Collinear Technologies for Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD). HVD uses a completely different technology from the conventional two-axis method and fully utilises the optical servo technologies associated with conventional DVD. This unique feature of the Optware Collinear Technology is very well suited for high-performance recording formats, file structures and I/O interfaces for both the enterprise storage market and the AV/IT professional electronic media storage markets such as film and broadcast content, and allows for migration of DVD content onto a 20 MB/sec HVD drive."
Mr. H. Horimai, Founder and CTO of OPTWARE said, "Holographic Information Storage System based upon Optware's proprietary Collinear Technologies allows us to integrate the holographic and the optical disc technologies to create brand-new storage technology."
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