Next-gen DVD ready, says Blu-ray Association
The Blu-ray Disc Association has called “action” on its next-generation disc manufacturing process.
The group—including member companies Philips , Matsushita, Samsung, Sony and Sharp, among others—said that having multiple companies involved with each step has contributed to process improvements and cost efficiencies that bring the long-term cost of manufacturing BD-ROM discs in line with current DVD replication costs.
“There are a lot of companies trying to stake out a position in various aspects of BD-ROM manufacturing,” says Kazuhiro Tsuga, executive officer of Matsushita Electric, in a statement. “As a result, we are seeing multitudes of improvements in processes and technology, as well as the effects of economies of scale that make replication extremely cost effective.”
The most recent advances come in the area of cover-layer technology, where one of two approaches—film bonding and spin coating—can be used to apply the 0.1 mm cover-layer used in Blu-ray Disc, the association said.
The spin-coating process, which uses resin to form the cover-layer, is now being piloted by Panasonic, who in cooperation with Origin Electric, has developed replication technology and equipment for the mass production of spin-coated discs.
With the improvements in cover-layer technology, and in preparation for mass production of BD-ROM discs, Singulus Technologies, a manufacturer of replication equipment, has developed replication systems that will target cycle times towards three seconds. Yields are expected to exceed 90 percent in a full-scale, mass production environment, the Blu-ray Disc Association reported.
Sony, too, has cut down on the steps involved by reducing the 11 steps currently used in DVD mastering to five for BD-ROM. This mastering process, dubbed Phase Transition Mastering (PTM), requires as little as one-fifth of the space required for DVD mastering and the equipment can be configured to allow mastering of both BD-ROM and DVD-ROM on a single system. The first two commercial machines are for Technicolor and Cinram for Q2, 2005 installation.
With these developments in the industry, the Blu-ray Disc Association said that replication facilities in the US are setting up and preparing to mass produce BD-ROM Discs. Technicolor is establishing a complete pilot BD disc manufacturing process by July 2005. Further, the group said that Cinram already has a pilot replication line that produced demo discs and is awaiting the delivery of commercial lines.
In addition, the Blu-ray Disc Association reported that Blu-ray companies have successfully demonstrated 200GB discs in a laboratory environment and are poised to further expand the format’s capacity as needs dictate.
2-Jun-2005