LONGMONT, Colo., 28 Nov. 2005. InPhase Technologies announced that it will use a high-speed custom complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera chip developed by Cypress Semiconductor Corp., for the world's first holographic storage drive.
Holographic storage delivers high capacity by recording data throughout the volume of the recording material, and not just on the surface. A data page of approximately 1 million bits is recorded in one flash of the laser. Each data page is located at a unique address within the material and several hundred pages of data, each with their own unique address, are recorded in the same location of the medium. A collection of data pages is referred to as a book.
This new recording technique enables more holograms to be stored in the same volume of material by overlapping not only pages, but also books of data. This dramatically increases the storage density.
The Cypress chip, an ultrasensitive and ultrafast CMOS image sensor, will enable high-speed reading of data (at 500 frames per second) recorded by the InPhase Tapestry drive.
InPhase leaders have demonstrated prototypes of the Tapestry drive in September at the International Broadcasters Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam, and in April at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas.
The InPhase prototype demonstrates a new generation of storage -- well beyond DVD, magnetic tape and disk -- which capitalizes on the company's leadership position in both holographic drive and media development. The Cypress chip will provide a critical final piece to the development of the Tapestry drive.
The initial InPhase Tapestry product will hold 300 gigabytes (GB) of data with a transfer rate of 20 megabytes (MB) per second -- ideal for high-definition recording. The InPhase Tapestry media and drive provide customers with access to huge amounts of data on a single disk. InPhase is targeting archive needs in commercial markets such as professional video, regulatory compliance, medical imaging, satellite imaging, and scientific applications where the need for long-term, secure and costeffective archives of massive amounts of digital data is a critical issue.
"We are literally redefining how information is stored and read for the next generation of recording devices, and the addition of Cypress's imaging expertise to the development of the first holographic drive is critical," said Nelson Diaz, CEO of InPhase. "We believe that this new architecture will help speed the development of new classes of devices that rely on holographic recording - whether for cameras, video recorders or editing systems."
Cypress's broad CMOS image sensor portfolio spans both the high-end and consumer mass markets. Cypress delivers high-performance sensors for custom and high-end digital photography; ultra high-speed imaging solutions for automotive safety, machine vision and motion analysis; and consumer-oriented solutions for ultra-slim digital still cameras, single-use cameras and camera-enabled mobile devices.
"The next generation of imaging products will require massive amounts of storage, in small form factors, and we believe that our work with InPhase on the first holographic drive will help us to position Cypress as a leading supplier of the imaging component," said Lou Hermans, senior marketing director for Cypress's image sensor business unit. "The consumer and professional imaging worlds are converging, and higher-yield, lower-cost products are required to continue the progress of optical recording. The InPhase Tapestry drive is a seminal touchpoint in this delicate area of technical development."
The Cypress CMOS imager features a digital interface and is sized with a pixel count of 1696 X 1710 and a pixel pitch of 8 microns. The InPhase Tapestry drive will direct the frame of data to enable a faster readout of information.
"The advantages offered by holographic imaging are so phenomenal, and the technology is so revolutionary, that the industry is only beginning to realize how massive the shift towards this new method of recording information will be, now that InPhase has finally cracked the previously unimagined barriers required to bring this technology to market," said Rick Doherty, president of Envisioneering. "The professional broadcast market is an ideal testing ground for holographic systems, and the reception from this industry to holographic recording has been quite favorable."
Cypress solutions are at the heart of any system that is built to perform: consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial, and solar power. Leveraging a strong commitment to customer service and performance-based process and manufacturing expertise, Cypress's product portfolio includes a broad selection of wired and wireless USB devices, CMOS image sensors, timing solutions, network search engines, specialty memories, high-bandwidth synchronous and micropower memory products, optical solutions, and reconfigurable mixed-signal arrays. For more information, see www.cypress.com.
InPhase Technologies is the leading developer of holographic data storage (HDS) recording media and systems. Based in Longmont, Colo., InPhase was founded in 2000, as a Lucent Technologies venture, and comprises some of the storage industry's leading executives, scientists and engineers. InPhase is backed by venture capital investors including New Venture Partners LLC, Signal Lake Ventures, Madison Dearborn Partners, Newton Technology Partners, Yasuda Enterprise Development, Japan Asia Investment Company, and Mr. B.J. Cassin. Corporate investors include Hitachi Maxell, Ltd., Imation Corp., and ALPS Information Technology Fund. For more information, see www.inphase-tech.com.
