The 20-layer 500 GB Blu-ray Disc technology is workable

Pioneer group engineers in Tokyo (Japan) said they can make optical discs with a capacity of dozens of times higher than today to serve the high-definition video and game industry.

This multi-layered storage method is compatible with Blu-ray reading devices and promises to open up a great competitive opportunity with other technologies such as storage of light interference.

Blu-ray discs are usually about 25 GB (1 layer) or 50 GB (2 layers), meeting today's needs but in the future, the storage space requirements of movies, games . have "heavy" graphics will be higher.

One difficulty with Pioneer technology is to make the "talk" disc layers together. Because the layers are so close together, the data of this layer can interfere with the other layer. The company had to apply different layers of different thicknesses to minimize this situation.

Pioneer presented the technology at the International Optical Memory Symposium (ISOM) in Hawaii (USA) in July and said it will bring the product to market by 2010-2012.