Sanyo has announced that it has developed a blue-violet semiconductor laser capable of outputting 450mW.
The company said this allows it to read and write data on discs with up to four data layers at speeds of 12X.
At present, Blu-ray discs store 25GB of data on each of its two layers. Sanyo’s four-layer disc would hold 100GB of data or about eight hours of HD video.
Sanyo claims that a device equipped with the laser would be able to burn an entire two-hour program to disc in as little as ten minutes.
The only thing you’ll have to wait for is the new laser coming to market – Sanyo said it’s unlikely to be available for at least another two years.