It's plastic. It holds 1GB. It's about the size of a stamp. It's clear. It costs about $1-$2 to produce.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) unveiled Info-MICA today.
Now the media market will get very, very interesting.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone announced the 1GB data capacity stamp-sized plastic media, "Info-MICA" o­n the 12th. They used both trial media and drive during the demonstration. While the media is intended for replaceable seminconductor ROM, it can also clearly be used for cellular phones, portable audio/video players, and music/video as a storage medium. They are aiming for putting an actual product o­n the market during 2005.

Info-MICA (Information-Multilayered Imprinted CArd) uses "thin film hologram" to create a large volume, recordable, plastic resin media.

The main feature of the media is the small and thin size; 25 x 25 x 2mm (H x W x T), while still being a large capacity storage medium. Also, there is the possibility of demonstration of a 10GB model of the same size by 2006, and o­n the laboratory level, operation of a 25GB model has been confirmed.

The realization of the large capacity was made possible by "thin film hologram" principles. Digital data is encoded in two dimensions, which is then calculated into a computer hologram image(CGH). When light strikes the surface, it takes the holographic image o­nto a rough pattern about 10 microns thick. This is done over and over again.

When reading, light from a semiconductor laser strikes the side of the media. When the dispersed light strikes overlaps, an image is reflected off the vertical (in regard to semiconductor laser) of the media. A CCD image element reads that two dimensional composite image, which restores it to its original digital state.

The data transfer rate of the demonstration model at the announcement event had a transfer speed of 1.5Mbps; but since this is the intended for mobile phones, higher speeds are theoretically possible. Also, while there is advancement to writeable media and drives, there are currently no concrete plans for creating a product.

Besides being small and having a large capacity, o­ne of the characteristics of this media is that there does not need to be any rotation as o­n CD or DVD drives, meaning the power consumption is low. Also, the laser o­nly needs to be pulsated when the holographic image is being used, meaning that generally the laser does not need to be activated. This means that power consumption is less than 1W - several hundreds less than a mW. In comparison, CD drives power consumption is 2000mW at the least, and CF cards about 100-150mW.

Also, the raw materials are "everyday plastic" (NTT), and the rough pattern can be created using basically the same process as current DVDs and such, large volume production at low cost is possible. NTT is estimating production costs for 1 media to be about 100-200 yen. The plastic is also recycleable; meaning that large scale distribution such as magazine supplements is also possible.

NTT has also said that due to things like layers physically peeling off the media, or copying the rough pattern being extremely difficult, "falsification is virtually impossible." There is also an independent algorithm being used for recording each time, so "working o­n them would take an extremely high level of technique."

One hypothetical use of the devices is a high-capacity replaceable ROM. When semiconductor ROMs get to be around 1GB, they get expensive; so this could easily be used in electronic dictionaries, pachinko, car navigation, etc..

It could also be used for games, music, movies, and other electronic publishing. Since the power consumption is very low, a Info-MICA drive compatible with SD cards is in development; and will be sold as a mobile phone media. Therefore, it is said that "It is more or less the same size as an SD memory card."

Since the media will be spread as a music and movie medium, The International Record Production Alliance (IFPI) and Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) are both considering this in their technical forums, and also exchanging technical explanations and ideas with record companies.

About the implentation aims, the Senior Manager of the Business Solutions Producer Team, Hideki Satsuki said "Due to the difficulty in reproduction, we are seeing a large reaction from the music world. While the current image realm is mainly focusing o­n Blu-Ray and HD DVDs, we would like to meet with all companies."

The concept of "holographic memory" has been around for about 40 years. In the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey," the computer "HAL" used a 3D holographic cube as its memory.

However, actual implementation of 3D holograms is difficult; even 2D holograms are still a large task, such as the laser mixing up the layers making the results unable to be seperated for reading.

NTT has employs technology currently used in optical fiber, which captures light and advances, called "laminate wavelength path structure." This allows the holographic images to be freely chosen for o­ne particular layer.

There is also a liquid crystal filter between the image and the CCD reader. Even if multiple images contain data that need to be accessed and are recorded in the same area, reading can be from o­nly the chosen layers. This is called "Open Multiple Access," and the lens of the CCD will be constrained to accomodate the situation.

This makes the focus depth deeper, which allows focus of the optical reading device without adjustment. While some of the images may become dim, NTT has said "the original hologram contains a large amount of data, so this shouldn't be a problem for a high pixel density CCD."




Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040212/ntt.htm

News Release:
http://www.ntt.co.jp/news/news04/0402/040212.html