Pioneer has developed a 16 layer read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400Gbyte. The technology is compatible with Blu-ray discs.
“Its per-layer capacity is 25Gbyte, which is the same as that of a Blu-ray Disc,” said the firm. “This multilayer technology will also be applicable to recordable discs.”
Using optical disc production technology developed for DVDs, Pioneer built a disc structure that reduces crosstalk from adjacent layers “resulting in a 16 layer optical disc that can playback high-quality signals from every layer”, it claimed.
The read-out system incorporates a wide-range spherical aberration compensator, and a “light-receiving element” that can read out weak signals at a high signal-to-noise ratio.
Since the optical specifications of the objective lens, such as numerical aperture, are the same as those for the existing Blu-ray discs, the company said it is possible to maintain compatibility between the 16 layer optical disc and Blu-ray discs.