— Company Honored in the Computer Accessories Category for Its 25GB BD-R Blu-ray Disc Media —
GARDEN CITY, NY, January 8, 2007 — TDK today announced that it has received an International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Innovations 2007 Design and Engineering Award from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), honoring TDK 25GB BD-R Blu-ray Disc media. Sponsored by the CEA and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the Innovations Awards program is the industry’s most recognized, highlighting product advancements in technology, design and engineering. TDK is showcasing its full line of Blu-ray Disc media at the 2007 International CES, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, January 8–11, 2007 (TDK booth #N215).
TDK was the first company to ship Blu-ray Discs with its 25GB BD-R and BD-RE media, and will begin shipping 50GB Blu-ray Discs early this year. Unveiled in April, TDK Thermal and Inkjet Printable BD-R will begin shipping in the second quarter of 2007. In addition, TDK recently announced a landmark in the development of recordable blue laser technology, achieving a groundbreaking capacity of 200GB. One of TDK’s new prototype 200GB blue laser discs could store approximately 18 hours of high definition video (encoded at 24Mbps). The massive capacity discs would be ideally suited for backing up HD editing sessions and archives.
Sethu Palat, TDK Director of Marketing said, “We are extremely proud that our Blu-ray Disc technology has been honored with an Innovations 2007 award. As a founding member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), TDK has played a key role in defining and developing the Blu-ray format. This Innovations 2007 award reaffirms TDK’s position as the recording technology leader.” He continued, “TDK will continue to realize even greater capacities and faster speeds for Blu-ray Discs, making them central products in TDK’s line for many years to come.”
TDK Sets the Standard for Blu-ray Disc’s Future
TDK’s research and development efforts are achieving unprecedented capabilities for next generation optical media. The company’s advanced material science played a key role in enabling the development of 200GB blue laser disc technology. For the 200GB technology development, TDK has stretched the physical margins of the Blu-ray Disc format, enabling a disc to store up to 33.3GB per layer while staying within the tolerances of the BD playback specifications. Current Blu-ray Discs store 25GB per layer.
TDK’s inorganic film formulation provides absolute stability with narrow track pitches and high recording densities, such as those employed by the Blu-ray Disc format. The formulation’s optical qualities are so stable that TDK has already been able to achieve 6x (216Mbps) recording speed on a 25GB write-once Blu-ray Disc prototype.
Professional Quality Surface Printing
TDK Thermal and Inkjet Printable Blu-ray Discs will offer the highest compatibility with Blu-ray drives and recorders/players. Using a DVD/CD compatible thermal or inkjet printer, users can print custom text and graphics directly on each disc’s label-side surface. The discs incorporate TDK’s advanced DURABIS hard coating technology. TDK BD-R media has true WORM (Write Once Read Many) characteristics, making it ideal for backup use in regulatory and compliance applications such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and SEC 17-a.
The Pioneer of Hard Coating Technology
Because Blu-ray Disc media’s data tracks are quite narrow even in comparison with DVD media, precise, stable interaction between the laser and the recording material is especially critical to ensuring error-free recording and playback. That’s why TDK developed DURABIS, an innovative hard coating technology that protects the disc surface against common contaminants such as scratches and fingerprints. DURABIS increases the scratch resistance of Blu-ray Disc media by a factor of 100 in comparison with a non-treated disc surface, as demonstrated in rigorous testing. TDK pioneered hard coating technology, which is an integral part of the Blu-ray specification.
The award-winning media will also be on display at the Blu-ray Disc Association pavilion (booth #11606), and at the Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase at Innovations Plus at the Sands Expo and Convention Center (booth #68747).
About TDK
TDK Corporation (NYSE: TDK) is a leading global electronics company based in Japan. It was
established in 1935 to commercialize “ferrite,” a key material in electronics and magnetics. The
company today is a leader in the development of next-generation technologies such as Blu-ray Disc
recording media, an optical disc ideally suited for high-definition video recording. TDK offers a full
line of recordable DVD and CD media, digital camcorder tapes, professional data storage solutions
including LTO Ultrium media, and much more.
