TDK at work on 200GB Blu-ray Disc

Will quadruple BD-R capacity

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

12th April 2006 10:32 GMT

TDK this week confirmed its plan to develop a Blu-ray Disc with a storage capacity of 200GB. If successful, the company's R&D effort will yield a disc with four times the capacity of today's biggest BDs and double the size of protoype next-generation BD-Rs TDK has already demo'd.

TDK showed off a 100GB BD prototype in May 2005. The 100GB disc contains four data-storage layers, is recordable and supports a write speed of up to 216Mbps, double that of 50GB BD-Rs.

It's expected to come to market next year, though with 50GB BD-R and BD-RE discs not yet shipping - media makers are now starting to push out single-layer, 25GB product - how soon that will be is open to question.

The launch timeframe of the 200GB disc - with eight layers, presumably - is even more uncertain. TDK simply said it was in the process of developing such a part, and didn't even hint when the prototype might appear, let alone commercially available product. ®