Toppan Printing Company and Sony Corporation have recently announced the successful development of a 25GB paper disc based on Blu-ray Disc technology. Details will be announced at the Optical Data Storage 2004 conference to be held from April 18th to April 21st at Monterey, California.

Using the disc-structure of Blu-ray Disc technology, the new paper disc has a total weight that is 51% paper. The two companies jointly began this optical disc project approximately a year ago. Blu-ray Disc is commonly known for allowing more than 2 hours of high-definition program recording.

Hideaki Kawai, Managing Director, Head of Corporate R&D Division, TOPPAN CO., LTD commented: "Using printing technology on paper allows a high level of artistic label printing on the optical disc. Since a paper disc can be cut by scissors easily, it is simple to preserve data security when disposing of the disc".

Masanobu Yamamoto, Senior General Manager of Optical System Development Gp., Optical Disc Development Div., Sony Corporation said: "Since the Blu-ray Disc does not require laser light to travel through the substrate, we were able to develop this paper disc. By increasing the capacity of the disc we can decrease the amount of raw material used per unit of information."

The worldwide production of optical discs is approximately 20 billion per year and optical discs are being adopted widely. The combination of paper material and printing technology is also expected to lead to a reduction in cost per disc and will expand usage.

TOPPAN and Sony will continue development of the disc for practical use.