Whereas cloud storage stays essentially the most seen portion of shopper storage throughout the tech ecosystem, the bit that requires essentially the most capability stays hidden. Archiving and long run knowledge storage by hyperscalers and repair suppliers have gathered steam over the previous decade as extra of our lives – particularly over the COVID lockdown – passed off on-line.
Optical storage (assume DVD and Blu-ray) has been within the shadows as tape, unique media (like silica or DNA) and exhausting disk drives vie for supremacy within the hotly contested space of archiving. Nevertheless, one newcomer, Folio Photonics, goals to ship the products quicker than everybody by taking a brand new spin on current optical expertise.
The beginning-up firm, spun-off from the Middle for Layered Polymeric Programs, a Nationwide Science Basis funded Science and Expertise Middle is a newcomer in a crowded market and we’ve sat down (nearly) with its CEO, Steve Santamaria to debate the way forward for this thrilling expertise.
I can hint the primary glimpse of a 1TB optical disc again to 2007. Why did it take so lengthy to get a commercially viable product?
It seems, commercially manufacturing of 1TB discs utilizing the normal spin coating methodology is troublesome to do whereas sustaining yields and margins. Folio’s breakthrough is as a lot in regards to the co-extruded movie manufacturing course of as it’s about superior materials science. The manufacturing course of permits industrial scale and reasonably priced prices. This enables Folio to ship excessive optical capability at a fraction of typical optical storage prices.
Your press launch mentions $5 per TB whereas your web site mentions $3 per TB, which one is correct?
Each are proper. This can be a market/enterprise choice. Folio intends to have the bottom $/TB of any present storage media once we ship the primary product, however we acknowledge that the information archive storage is a commodity and can handle our value and roadmap accordingly to ship the very best worth to our prospects and to our traders.
How is your optical disk completely different from a standard blu-ray one? What is the secret sauce?
Multi-layer and low-cost manufacturing course of. Conventional Bluray discs are three or 4 layers and have been for 20 years (the Archival disc achieves 6 layers by having 3-layers on either side). Our first product can be 8 layers per aspect, that means we may have a 16 layer double sided disc. That’s ~ 2.7X the capability of present Bluray with out advances in areal density (extra knowledge per layer). The key sauce is Materials Science + extruded film-based manufacturing.
Many earlier than you might have tried the WORM route however did not make any impression (e.g Pinnacle Micro and so on). What makes your method completely different and the way did you handle to beat giants like Panasonic or Sony?
We consider the shopper’s wants are evolving. A lot of information being archived are “Objects” and by definition Object knowledge must be immutable. WORM is one of the best ways to attain knowledge immutability.
Your expertise permits the usage of each cartridges or discs. What could be the use circumstances for both (maybe prosumer vs petabyte-size archives)?
There are a selection of library corporations that provide robotics in addition to a strong SW layer that we’re working with. Cartridge vs disc carousel, vs disc tray can be chosen to service the varied market use circumstances and decided by the library distributors.
What kind of efficiency are we speaking about? Entry time, switch price, write charges and so on?
Right now, we’re not disclosing efficiency metrics, however are snug pointing to the SONY ODA metrics as comparable. Entry time specifically can be decided by the library distributors and the ratio of drives to discs they commercialize.
What is the horizon 3 goal? 10TB disc and 100TB cartridges by 2030? Would value per TB keep the identical or go down?
10TB discs are the goal, however can be decided by the market. Folio’s manufacturing course of permits us a lot higher management of prices and we decide to ship the very best worth to our prospects and to our traders.
How a lot will the writers/readers value and what kind of enchancment would you see on that aspect? A number of studying/writing heads? Twin aspect ones?
Nonetheless too early to debate the pricing of our drives besides that we’ll be competitively positioned someplace between as we speak’s Blu Ray drives and LTO Tape drives.
Why name the corporate Folio Photonics? What is the photonics facet of it?
The title Folio Photonics got here from our founder, Dr. Ken Singer. “Folio” refers to layering sheets of paper (right into a e-book format in lots of circumstances); therefore it’s used to explain the layered movie we manufacture. Subsequent, “Photonics” is the bodily science and software of sunshine (photon) era, detection, and manipulation. By combining our improvements in materials science, manufacturing, and optics, we’re in a position to make use of our layered movie along side photonics for this high-tech software.
Your web site mentions 16+ layers. Does that imply that probably extra layers will come?
Sure, we undertaking to 32+ layers by 2030 in our expertise roadmap. With that being stated, our manufacturing technique of co-extrusion has demonstrated the potential to attain considerably greater than 32 layers. Whereas we goal to create 32 layer movies, the disc can be double-sided. It will permit for 32 layers on both sides. 167GB x 64 Layers is upwards of 10.7TB. That’s how we undertaking as much as 10TB.
What areal density will the primary gen discs use? What kind of areal density enchancment do you count on to attain additional down the road?
We’re projecting that our first era discs can be within the vary of ordinary optical areal density/layer as we speak. Which is within the vary of 25-33GB/Layer relying on the media examined. Optical applied sciences have proven the potential to attain upwards of 88-167GB/layer by decreasing spot dimension, making marks nearer collectively, and advancing learn/write optics. We consider this to be achievable sooner or later as we progress down our expertise roadmap.