New Technology to Enable 1PetaByte Optical Discs. -- Researchers Develop 1000TB Optical Discs

Xbitlabs ^ | 06/24/2013 07:42 PM | Anton Shilov

[JRandomFreeper]

That’ll store a lot of pr0n.

"The Circus Pony, the Acrobat, and the Dwarf, Volume VII, Trip to Seaworld"

/johnny

[Mr. Jeeves]

Wonderful - except it will still take three weeks to write 1,000 TB to the disk. :)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

When I see the word Lithography I immediately associate it with the etching of computer chips.>{?I guss that could be memory chips.

But then the writer throws in CD discs....

Never seen the word Lithography used as the mechanism for writing data on a CD / DVD disc.

[erod]

If this happened I could start ripping blu rays!!!! :D

[Moonman62]

The downside is the disc is 10 miles wide.

[Brett66]

The new technique produces a focal spot that is 1 ten thousandth of a human hair

Think of the hair you could store with that!

[Dr. Sivana]

An upgrade from 64k to 128k was extremely expensive in the early 1980s.

Heck, most folks were still in the 8 bit world back then (Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore VIC-20/64, a bunch of Z-80 CPM boxes like KayPro and Osborne).

I did check an 1983 gamer magazine from England:

RAM PACKS FOR YOUR VIC 20 HARDWARE

32K switchable to 3K, 16K, 24K + hi-res £69.95

16K switchable to 3K f44.95 8K £29.95 3K £19.95

4-slot motherboard £24.95. All slot directly into the back of your Vic 20.

ATARI 400 16K - £129.57 + VAT = £149

ATARI 400 48K - £172.17 +VAT«£198

ATARI 800 48K - £260.00 +VAT = £299

[Marine_Uncle]

RE: "How does lithography impact storage,...I maybe am missing simethib here."

Well since one will be able to make even smaller transistors, then now possible, this will lead to new levels of sub micron chip design. Photo lithography is among the early steps taken to draw the various levels of transistors and the interconnecting wiring on into the chemical coatings applied on the silicon substrate (wafer) in the case of making transistors.
Where then during after each "writing step" is taken, one performs the chemical processes to implant the silicon substrate with either p or n or other metals, to build up parts of the transistor, as well as the aluminum interconnect leads (wiring the logic blocks) per circuit design requirements.
During the many stages (steps), think many passes of first creating a image upon a photo resistive coating allowing the coating to change it's characteristics, say not be susceptible to dissolving away when a given type of acid is applied to the wafer surface. So one builds layers into the wafer substrate surface, So with this new reduction in the beam size, one can make smaller features. Smaller transitors equate to increased clock rates in Integrated Circuits, as well as increased size of RAM and ROM.
So companies will be able to manufacture more powerful transistor circuits. For example:
Say current fabrication techniques limit the total size one can build a RAM onto a CPU chip, to 10 megabyte.
Now one may be able to double the size of the RAM on the chip to be 20 megabytes. Henceforth, a 100 percent increase in "storage" capability on the chip.

I barely touch upon how one makes a integrated circuit. Just think smaller elements such as transistors being made on a given dice size of silicon, so that more logic and memory can be designed into the integrated circuit. And smaller size transistors mean increased clock rates, so the chips can run at greater speeds for a given heat generation.
It gets rather involved.

I hope my deliberate abbreviated explanation helps some sort of visualize the benefits of increased ability in Photo Lithography to create ever more complex IC's.

[Bob]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane (sorry).

Yes, RAM really was that expensive as were hard drives. I remember getting my first hard drive for an IBM PC in the mid, possibly late, 1980s -- a full-height 5 1/4" drive. At the time, the 5 meg drive cost about $300 but I opted to spend the extra $200 to get the massive 10 megabyte drive. (And, in those days, the $200 difference was worth a lot more than it is today.)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looks like to me this could be a huge impavct on buildong chips without all of that super expensive ulv violtte and xray technology....

Who needs a 1000 times petabyte on a CD?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

be back ;ater/

[Dr. Sivana]

A full height on a XT would have been mid-80s. By the time the late 80s came along, the ATs had 1/2 height 1.2MB high density diskettes and the PS/2 series sported 3 1/2” 720kb and 1.44 Mb drives. Heady times.

Was your 5MB MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, or proprietary. (I am omitting the SLOW floppy port adapter version used on early Macs.) Yikes.

[Dr. Sivana]

Oh, I thought your full-height was referring to the floppy drive. Full height 5 MB went away when the great mass market drive, the Seagate 225 (20 mb) hit the market, along with its 30 mb RLL cousin and 40mb business model (ST238?)

[Marine_Uncle]

RE: "Who needs a 1000 times petabyte on a CD?"

One could rant out a number of negatives. I'll spare us.
As usual it is a two edged sword.

[rdb3]

Well, the speed of light has slowed down so...

[arthurus]

An optical disc from the Animal Rights terrorists?

[Bob]

You're probably right on the timing being in the mid rather than late 1980s.

As I recall the 5 and 10 megabyte drives were both Seagates and were full-height drives. They could have been either MFM or RLL. (They definitely weren't ESDI or SCSI.) The acronym SASI comes to mind but I'm not so sure about that. The memory fades with time.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well my new keyboard hasn't reduced my typos...

Definitely old tired eyes....

[EternalVigilance]

Professor Gu said by using a second donut-shaped beam to inhibit the photopolymerisation triggered by the writing beam in the donut ring, two-beam optical beam lithography can break the limit defined by the diffraction spot size of the two focused beams. He said the key to 3D deep sub-diffraction optical beam lithography was the development with CSIRO of a unique two-photon absorption resin. “This enabled a two-channel chemical reaction associated with the polymerisation and its counterpart of inhibited polymerisation, respectively, which eventually attributed to build mechanically robust nanostructures.

Of course! Why didn't I think of that ...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Fred could you run over to this university and check out what the guys are talking about.

And if they are gonna form a company backed up with patents ,...I want to invest .....need a stock symbol.