A nice sidebar...the one you made reference to.
CREE'S BLUE LASER HOLY GRAIL
Researchers have long tried to harness the color blue for laser applications. Cree Research has done it. It's creating blue lasers with proprietary Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology.
Red lasers are the most common today. CD and DVD players use them. But the wavelengths of red and infrared lasers are twice as long as blue wavelengths.
The shorter wavelength of blue lasers is powerful. It enables the blues to hold twice the digital code as reds in the same wave space. This translates into much higher storage capacities on CDs and DVDs. Smaller wavelengths mean the laser can write and read much more information in the same amount of physical disc space.
DVDs hold 4.7 billion bytes of data. Blue-laser DVDs will hold more than 20 billion bytes, enough for five movies. The blue laser could also find important uses in military communications and in advanced computers and networks because of its increased power.
Strategies Unlimited, a research group, estimates the blue laser market at $2 billion by 2006.
Cree is one of the leaders in blue lasers, along with Xerox (XRX), Sony (SNE), Hewlett Packard (HWP) and Fujitsu. It accelerated its blue laser efforts with a $2.6 million development program funded by Seattle-based Microvision (MVIS).
Nichia Chemical Industries, a Japanese company, will be Cree's main competitor in the blue laser race. In December 1998, Nichia made the first blue laser capable of working continuously for over an hour.
"Cree is the second company in the world to develop continuous blue light," says CFO Cynthia Merrell. The blue laser is now in research and development. Cree's first revenues from blue laser products will arrive within 24 months.
--By Bernard B. Tulsi
Technology Investor magazine
I agree...this is an excellent magazine
I believe I read that the premier issue has over 300,000 subscriptions.
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