The Stacked Volumetric Optical Disc (or SVOD) is an optical disc

Optical disc

In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc is a flat, usually circular disc which encodes binary data in the form of pits and lands on a special material on one of its flat surfaces...

 format developed by Hitachi

Hitachi, Ltd.

is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...

/Maxell

Maxell

, commonly known as Maxell, is a Japanese company which manufactures consumer electronics. The company's notable products are batteries -- the company's name is a contraction of "maximum capacity dry cell" -- and recording media, including audio cassettes and blank VHS tapes, and recordable optical...

, which uses an array of wafer-thin optical discs to allow data storage.

Each "layer" (a thin polycarbonate

Polycarbonate

PolycarbonatePhysical PropertiesDensity 1.20–1.22 g/cm3Abbe number 34.0Refractive index 1.584–1.586FlammabilityV0-V2Limiting oxygen index25–27%Water absorption – Equilibrium0.16–0.35%Water absorption – over 24 hours0.1%...

 disc) holds around 2.4TB of information, and the wafers are stacked in layers of 100 or so, giving overall data storage increase of 100x or more.

SVOD will likely be a candidate, along with HVD

Holographic Versatile Disc

The Holographic Versatile Disc is an optical disc technology developed between April 2004 and mid-2008 that can store up to several terabytes of data on an optical disc the same size as a CD, DVD or Blu-ray disc. It employs a technique known as collinear holography, whereby a green and red laser...

s, to be the next-generation optical disc standard.

External links

• Hitachi Maxell develops wafer-thin storage disc details and interview from IDG News Service (Oct 4, 2006)
• Maxell details in Japanese language (Apr 19, 2006)
• NikkeiBP some details in English (Apr 20, 2006)