Polaroid, other U.S. companies given Federal reasearch grant for advanced optical disc technologies.............
Compatible with DVD, up to 10X the storage capacity needed to store several hours of HDTV video.
-------------------
Joint Venture Project in Digital Data Storage Named as Advanced Technology Program Award Recipient
Calimetrics, Energy Conversion Devices and Polaroid Collaborate in
$20 Million Project Administered by National Storage Industry Consortium
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Calimetrics, Inc., Energy Conversion
Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENER), and Polaroid Corporation (NYSE: PRD) today
announced that they have been named as recipients of a federal government
Advanced Technology Program (ATP) award, designated for the development of new
optical disc storage technologies.
The goal of the research and development program is to deliver up to ten-
fold increases in storage capacity and significant increases in the data
transfer rate of phase-change, write-once and rewritable, DVD-compatible
optical storage technologies. These technologies currently store from 2.6
Gigabytes (GB) to 3.9 GB of data, the equivalent of 1800 to more than 2700
computer floppy disks, on a single-layer, CD size platter. The increased
capacity and performance targets of the research program would make it
possible to store several hours of high-definition television (HDTV) content,
or thousands of professional-quality high-resolution still photos, on a
single-sided disc.
The research award provides funds to the Multiple Optical Recording
Enhancements (MORE) Joint Venture, which is administered by the National
Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC). Researchers at the University of Arizona
and Georgia Institute of Technology will provide supporting studies in several
disciplines. Up to $20 million dollars may be invested in the research during
the four year project, with one-half of the funding provided by the ATP
program, and the remainder of funding provided by the participating companies.
The project team is developing technologies to record data using multiple
levels of reflectivity on a single-layer, ovonic phase-change optical disc,
combined with "near-field" principles in recording and reading the data.
These developments will be useful in current technologies and will complement
the storage capacity and data transfer rate improvements achieved by other
advances in optical disc storage, such as the introduction of blue
semiconductor lasers.
The Advanced Technology Program, administered by the Commerce Department's
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides cost-shared
funding to industry for research and development projects with the potential
to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the United States.
While the program does not fund development of specific products, the ATP
accelerates, or in many cases enables, potentially important projects that
industry otherwise would not undertake or devote significant resources to,
because of the technical risks involved. Details on the ATP can be found at:
nist.gov
Additional information on the three companies participating in the MORE
Joint Venture and on NSIC can be obtained at the following Web sites:
Calimetrics, calimetrics.com
Energy Conversion Devices, ovonic.com
Polaroid, polaroid.com
and the National Storage Industry Consortium, nsic.org
SOURCE Polaroid Corporation
/CONTACT: Tom Burke of Calimetrics, Inc., 510-420-1211 or Dave Strand of
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., 248-280-1900 or Bob Guenther of Polaroid
Corporation, 617-386-3112 or Barry Schechtman of NSIC, 619-621-2556/
(PRD ENER) |
