HALF-TERABIT
PER SQUARE INCH DATA DENSITY FROM INPHASE TECHNOLOGIES BREAKS ALL
RECORDS
Leader in Holographic Storage Successfully
Demonstrates 515 Gigabits Per Square Inch Data Density; as Compared to 300
Gigabits for Magnetic Disk Drives
FOR RELEASE ON: MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2006
LONGMONT, CO -- InPhase Technologies, the world's
leader in holographic data storage, announced today that it has demonstrated the
highest data density of any commercial technology by recording 515 gigabits of
data per square inch. Holographic storage is a revolutionary departure
from all existing recording methods because it takes advantage of volumetric
efficiencies rather than only recording on the surface of the material. InPhase
will deliver the industry's first holographic drive and media later this
year. The first generation drive has a capacity of 300 gigabytes on a
single disk with a 20 megabyte per second transfer rate. The first product will
be followed by a family ranging from 800GB to 1.6 terabyte (TB) capacity.
"IT professionals are experiencing enormous growth
in their data archives," said Wolfgang Schlichting, Research Director, Removable
Storage, IDC. "InPhase Technologies' announcement is an important milestone in
storage density, demonstrating impressive capacity increases enabled by
holographic storage. The technology represents a potential alternative to
incumbent technologies for archival storage requirements," he added.
Densities in holography are achieved by different
factors than magnetic storage. Density depends on the number of pixels/bits in a
page of data; the number of pages that are stored in a particular volumetric
location; the dynamic range of the recording material; the thickness of the
material, and the wavelength of the recording laser.
In this demonstration there were over 1.3 million
bits per data page, and 320 data pages spaced 0.067 degrees apart were stored in
the same volume of material. A collection of data pages is referred to as
a book, and InPhase's PolyTopic recording architecture enables more holograms to
be stored in the same volume of material by overlapping not only pages, but also
books. Three tracks of overlapping books were written with a track pitch
of 700 microns. The InPhase Tapestry ™ material was 1.5 millimeters thick, and
the laser wavelength was 407 nanometers.
'The latest results from our ongoing tests on
holographic data density have surpassed expectations," said Kevin Curtis, chief
technology officer of InPhase. 'We are particularly pleased at the rate of
improvement. In April of 2005, we demonstrated 200 Gb/in(2) data density and - a
year later - the density has increased more than 2.5 times. '
The write transfer rate is determined by the time
required to position the laser at the correct angular address, the speed of the
shutter, the laser power, and the exposure time. In this demonstration the
average exposure time per page was 2.7 milliseconds, which translates into a
user write transfer rate of 23 megabytes per second.
The impact that these data densities will have on
future products is tremendous. For the home video fan, one disk could hold the
equivalent of 106 DVD movies. For IT managers dealing with archiving millions of
email messages, higher densities mean savings on space, time, and power.
Michael Mangiona, president of offsite storage
provider Data Solutions, adds that 'with extremely high densities of holographic
storage demonstrated by InPhase,
IT companies such as Data Solutions benefit, as
greater storage density ultimately translates into lower storage costs for us
and for our customers."
InPhase will be presenting several holographic
storage papers at the Optical Data Storage Conference from April 23-26, 2006 in
Montreal, Canada. In addition, InPhase will exhibit its products at the National
Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas next month, from April 24-27
in the Maxell booth C6932, Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention
Center.
About InPhase
Technologies
InPhase Technologies is the leading developer of
holographic data storage (HDS) recording media and systems. Based in Longmont,
Colorado, InPhase was founded in 2000, and is comprised of some of the storage
industry's leading executives and scientists. InPhase is funded by venture
capital investors New Venture Partners LLC, Signal Lake Ventures, Newton
Technology Partners, Yasuda Enterprise Development, Japan Asia Investment
Company, Nanotechnology Partners and Mr. B.J. Cassin. Corporate investors are
Hitachi Maxell, Ltd., Bayer MaterialScience AG, and ALPS Information Technology
Fund. For more information on InPhase, please visit the company's Web site
at www.inphase-tech.com.
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Source: InPhase
