Audio Video News

Consumers don't always appreciate the ingenuity involved in bringing high technology to market.

Case in point: the difficulty of making video disc systems that can reliably record and play back high definition content. As data density increases, the tools for making lasers, diodes, lenses, and other parts of disc transport systems must become much more precise.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. has announced the development of a "3-D profiler" that will become an essential tool for other manufacturers in making lenses for high definition DVD transports. With a targeted data density of as much as 27 gigabytes per side, HD-DVDs (or "Blu-ray" discs) have a much smaller pit area than ordinary DVDs, which contain 4.7Gb of data. Standard compact discs, by comparison, contain only 650–750 megabytes of data.

Focusing the laser's light becomes much more critical as pits shrink. That's where Matsushita's new profiler becomes essential. The device can measure areas as big as 400 x 400 x 90 mm with 10-nanometer accuracy, according to an April 11 report by Yoshiko Hara on the EE Times site. The profiler uses a diamond stylus as an atomic-force probe, scanning the surface of the target material with a gap of only one nanometer (billionth of a meter), sufficient to "feel" the attraction or repulsion of atoms on the surface. Manufacturers will use the device to make tiny precision lenses for Blu-ray disc transports.

The company's previous profiler, used for making standard DVD lenses, has a ruby stylus with a 0.5mm radius, far too large to be practical for Blu-ray equipment. The new profiler is the only one in the world with "submicron" resolution. Matsushita will soon offer three different models of its Blu-ray profiler systems, ranging from $390,000 to $770,000 per unit, with 30–50 units expected to be sold in the first year. The high-def and high-density video disc market is expected to reach the $1 billion level by 2010.