10X Blu-Ray Burners

A breakthrough in lasers could result in far faster Blu-Ray and HD DVD recording, according to research published today by Nichia. A new blue-violet diode from the Japanese firm would supply as much as 320 milliwatts of power, more than doubling the 130 milliwatts of today's blue-laser burners used to write to both next-generation storage formats. The refinement should let a disc burner spend less time on each bit of data, the company says. Where even faster Blu-Ray drives today record at 4X on a single-layer disc, Nichia-inspired drives could finish a 50GB dual-layer disc at 10X. Still unreleased four-layer discs would write at 2X.

Full-scale production of the lasers should start by the first half of 2008, with the drives themselves following soon afterwards. Nichia warned, however, that the technique will still demand that discs themselves be improved to take advantage of the added performance. [via CDRinfo]

By Electronista Staff