A Paper on Emerging Technologies in Data Storage System

Course: Management Information Systems

Instructor: Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee

By Rahul Prakash

Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharaghpur

ABSTRACT:

In this era of innovation emerging technologies that are coming up is in the field of data storage are
MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) based and holographic data storage system. They aim at
providing very high storage densities and high performance. This paper discusses about MEMS
based memory storage and holographic data storage systems. Both of these data storage systems
have huge potential. The holographic data storage system can store around 500 GB to 1.6 Tera byte
of information on a DVD sized disc and the MEMS based system can store around twenty five million
text books on a surface roughly the size of a postage stamp.
INTRODUCTION:

As time has passed there is an increasing need for data storage capacities to increase. Take the
entertainment industry, every day the number of channels are increasing and entertainment program
is running 24X7, three hundred sixty five day a year. Now day’s people want to store large amount of
high definition video content, even the media companies are looking for alternatives to store so much
of media content. The computing industry advancing day by day also has highlighted the need to
store huge amount of data. They are looking for alternatives that could replace the hard disk system in
personal computers. Mobile phone companies, digital camera companies are all seeking alternatives
that can provide means to store more data.
One of the leaders in the research of this technology is IBM. They have a project named Millipede
which aims at data storage concentration of trillion bits per/ inch2. It is MEMS (Microelectro
Mechanical Systems) based storage system. Instead of using traditional magnetic or electronic
resources, IBM scientists have used thousands of nano-sharp tips called cantilevers to store data
onto a thin plastic film. These nano tips punch indentations which represent individual bits ones and
zeros into a thin film. It is similar to a nano version of ‘punch card’ developed more than a century
back for data processing. A single nano-tip makes an indentation of ten nanometres in diameter.

This is fifty thousand times smaller than the full stop that we use as punctuation in English language.
This has been demonstrated by using an experimental set up of more than 1000 tips. More than three
billion bits can be occupied by a single hole in a standard punch card. This can help to increase the
data storage memory of mobile devices, multifunctional watches, mobile phones and also of hard
disk.
 Figure 1: MEMS Memory Technology.

Figure 2: Shows cantilever making the indentation.

Holographic data storage system stores high density data on photopolymers. The development of this
technology started from the end where all the attributes required were first laid down and then the
backward development started. It consist of disc that records data by the use of lasers. The media on
which the data is written is one and a half millimetre thick. Now what differentiates this from other
optical media like Blue ray disc and DVD is that these technology record data only on the surface of
the disc whereas holographic data storage system records data throughout the media. Thus by
optimum utilization of the entire recording media it can pack lot of data compared to others. Recording
throughout the media is achieved by changing the angle of laser incident on the recording media.

One might wonder why holographic storage today?

There is no one particular reason why not so because it offers certain advantage over the existing
recording media. First of all it provides much more capacities then any existing media. It can store
from 300 GB to 1.6 TB on a single disc. Coupled with high disc storage capacity it also provides high
performance i.e. it can transfer data at the rate of 120 MB/s.

It has a long life of fifty years plus with no special handling needed and no media wear issues. It has
also addressed the security issue by providing drive and media security options and there is no need
to restore data as it provides millisecond access.
 Figure3: Holographic data storage disc (Source: Inphase)

HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE SYSTEM (HDDS):

Before going ahead with Holographic data storage system lets first revisit history of the optical data
storage. The first optical data storage system that came out was way back in the 1980’s, that’s almost
three decades back. In the year 1982 Philips came out with first compact disc manufactured at their
plant near Hanover near Germany and since then, over 300 billion compact disc has been sold.
Compact disc revolutionized the music industry as for the first time a scratch free and superior sound
quality media came. The disc was designed with aim of providing a one hour of playback. The
compact disc were one time writable so further development took place to make them rewritable so
finally in the year 1988 rewritable compact disc were brought to the market. This was a boon for the
audio industry which suffered greatly because of non availability of a good quality recordable media.
As technology developed, in the year 1993 the first VCD video compact disc standard was formed by
Sony, Philips, Matsushita and JVC which is also known as the white book standard. This not only
could store still pictures but also motion pictures however this should not be confused with video CD.
Video CD had come much earlier. They had come around 1987 and could record around twenty
minutes audio and five minutes video. Video CD did not have much life and soon departed from the
market in the year 1991 that’s when VCD standard was created. Though these CD’s were a godsend
for the computing and the entertainment industry it had few demerits.

As technology grew people wanted more data storage space which could not be provided by compact
disc which had limited storage space. Multimedia compact disc and super density disc were being
developed which eventually led to the creation of the DVD in the year 1995.DVD is also known as
Digital Video disc or Digital Versatile Disc and was invented and developed by Sony, Philips, Time
Warner and Toshiba.
One can store around 4.37 to 17.08 GB ordinary data or mix DVD-Video and data on a recordable
DVD. DVD was highly valued by people as it gave them the freedom to store large amount of data on
a single disc.

However people requirements did not stop here. Commercial HDTV started to appear in the
consumer market in 1998. What came next completely stunned the world. Blue ray disc was
developed by blue ray disc association. The association consisted of representatives from consumer
electronics, computer hardware and motion picture Industry some of which were Sony, Philips, LG,
and Panasonic. However all was not calm there was a high definition optical disc format war emerged
in which Blue ray Disc competed with HD DVD format by Toshiba. This war formally ended in the year
2008 when Toshiba decided to withdraw its support from HD DVD format. Blue ray disc are normally
associated with high capacities. These discs cannot be run on any ordinary DVD player, for this one
needs special players which can read blue ray disc. The Blue ray disc can store around 25 GB to 50
GB of data.

Future development took place for creating a 3D blue ray disc and this year first blue ray 3D disc
came to the market.

So we see how technology evolved and the optical storage media industry graduated from a compact
disc to a 3D blue layer disc. Compact disc, DVD are still being used as there are much cheaper
compared to the blue ray disc. Not only the blue ray disc is expensive but the blue ray player itself is
expensive. However the blue ray disc popularity will increase because it provides superior sound and
video quality and currently all the motion pictures studio are coming up with blue ray disc titles. After
so much of development you might think technocrats might have stopped here but the next big
technology in disc storage system is underway and will be brought to the market in next couple of
years. With the increasing number of television channel, the entrainment industry is seeking for a
technology that could make data storage easier.

Consumers are demanding more disc space because today people want to store relatively
everything. Even the computing industry is in need of higher capacity data system.

Compact Blue What Holographic memory

Disc DVD Ray Next? system

HDD
Innovation has no end. True to this Holographic data storage system is currently under development
which might hit the market in the next couple of years. The race is so competitive that there are
presently twenty one companies involved in the research and development of this technology. One
was in awe when they came to know about blue ray disc which could store maximum of 50 GB of data
but wait till the holographic data storage system hits the market. This technology will lead to storage of
more than one Tera byte of data on a single disc. Isn’t this amazing. Currently holographic data
storage disc can store around 500 GB of data but this has still not become commercial and
developments are taking place to increase it beyond one Tera byte of data.

When we come across holographic data storage system the first thing that comes to our mind is
what holography is. The holography is part of a diffraction optics which studies both the beam and
wave aspects of light. It is records patterns of light to produce a three dimensional picture.
Holographic memory system is the recording of this pattern of light. The father of holography is Denis
Gabor who in the year 1947 made the discovery when he was trying to increase the sensitivity of the
first electron microscope. However holography came into limelight in the early 1960’s when
implementation of laser provided fascinating insights. Soon after those holograms of good quality
appeared and for this achievement Denis Gabor was awarded the Nobel Prize in the year
1971.However the 1960’s period there was stagnation in computing industry. The industry wanted
higher storage system as their thought semiconductor and magnetic recording devices will not be able
to meet the demand so then came the idea of holographic data storage system. However the
holographic data storage system had difficulties as laser was new and expensive at that time unlike
today where a laser will cost you twenty to thirty Indian rupees and also they had difficulties in the
photopolymer media. Soon this technology was lost with the coming of compact disc which was then
followed DVD’s and today Blue ray disc. In the early 1990’s the development of holographic memory
again started and today what we witness is 500 GB of storage on a single disc prototype.

HOW DOES A HOLOGRAM WORK?

1. There are two beams one is the signal beam and other is a recording beam. When both the
beams intersect they create a pattern of dark and bright region.

2. This pattern is recorded on a photosensitive pattern.

3. The hologram is the image of the pattern stored in the medium.

4. When the light from one of the beams is focussed on the hologram, the data pattern is
reconstructed.
The above four process (recording & Reading) is highlighted in the below shown images.

Figure 4: Working of a Hologram

HOW DOES HOLOGRAM DATA STORAGE SYSTEM WORK?

(Credits- Inphase technologies)

The figure below shows how the recording is done in this technology. The light emitted from the laser
gets split into two different beams one is the reference beam and the other one is a signal beam. The
data is carried by the signal beam and a SLM spatial light modulator is used to encode the message.
The data which is in the form of zeros and ones is translated into a check-board pattern of dark and
bright pixels. The angle at which light is reflected on the recording media is very crucial because that
is what differentiates this technology from others. By controlling the deflection angle it can record data
throughout the medium. Pages and pages of data are written on the recording medium. The deflection
angle is what differentiates them.

Figure 5: Recording Process

READING PROCESS:

To read the data the set up is shown below. The light emitted from the Laser acts as a reference
beam is reflected on the storage medium. The reference beam gets deflected by the hologram and
the information stored is reconstructed. The media is stationary both at time of reading and recording.

Figure 6: Reading Process

PROS AND CONS OF HOLOGRAPHIC MEMORY STORAGE SYSTEM:

The pros of this technology are that it has high data density storage capacity ranging from 300 GB to
1.6 TB on a single disc. It has life of over fifty years and has random access to data that too at high
speed. It has got low power requirements and highest optical data transfer rate. The cons of this
technology are that its transfer rate is lower than that those of magnetic storage medium and worm
only format in introduction might be introduced. Also since it’s a new technology this might work
against it because it will take considerable amount of time for people to accept it.

PLAYERS IN THE MARKET & CURRENT STATUS:

Inphase technologies are at the forefront of this technology. This company was a spin off from
Lucent’s bell labs and established in the year 2000. It has around one hundred million dollars invested
in it and is the primary supplier of holographic media to worldwide optical drive developers. The major
corporate investors who have shown a keen interest in this technology and thus provided funding to
this company are Bayer, Q Star, Maxell, cypress semiconductors, Os storage, Terastore, and Alps
electronics. The company has already demonstrated a storage capacity of 515 GB/in2.
Nintendo has entered in Joint research agreement with Inphase and thus will become the first video
game maker to implement this technology.

GE Global Research the technology development arm of the General Electric Company.GE is an
American Multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in the state of New York. The company
has annual revenue of 157 billion US dollars with around 304000 employees worldwide. GE global
research lab is the one of the most diversified industrial labs and has 2800 researchers. The
holographic storage program is headed by Brian Lawrence. In May 2009 GE announced a
breakthrough in this technology after working for six years.

They demonstrated 500 GB of storage capacity on disc with size equivalent to a DVD. They are
aiming to cross the one terabyte mark. This technology is still not out in the market although GE has
intensified its commercialization activity.

Optware Corporation was established in the year of 1999 in Japan. Optware’s team comprises of
former members of Sony Corporation. They have developed a new method of holographic storage
which is known as collinear holographic versatile disc which can store more than one Tera Byte of
information on a Disc.

ECMA International industry association develops standards for information and communication tech.
And consumer elect. formed an ECMA technical committee in 2004 to standardize holographic
storage systems.

Other players in the market are Fuji Photo Film, TDK, NEC, Sanyo, Universal, Thomson, Warner
Bros, Budapest University of technology and economics, Panasonic.
MEMS BASED STORAGE SYSTEM:

(Credit Zurich IBM Lab)

The Millipede Concept:

Figure 7: The Concept

The Millipede is based on a probe storage system which consist of a two dimensional array of probes
and a mechanical scanner. The probes are called Cantilevers. The mechanical scanner is responsible
for the movement of the storage system with respective to the cantilever array. This system of probes
and scanner is shown in the above picture. The two dimensional array of probes or cantilevers is
aligned above the storage medium with high amount of accuracy. It also takes into consideration of
any external shock or vibrations. For reading, writing and erasing function the probes or cantilevers
are brought in contact with the storage medium which moves in X and Y direction as shown above.
The storage medium consist of thin film of a cross linked polymer coated on a silicon substrate.

The MEMS ASSEMBLY:

Figure 8: The MEMS Assembly

The diagram of MEMS assembly is shown above. MEM is Microelectromechanical systems and is the
technology of very small mechanical systems run by electricity. MEM is the integration of
nanotechnology with NEMS. Scanner is clearly shown in purple colour under which the cantilevers are
show. Wire bonding technology is used to connect the MEMS assembly to the circuit board. Other
constituents of the MEMS assembly such as base plate, bonding pad, spacer interconnect, magnet
and coil are also highlighted above.

THE WRITE PROCESS:

Figure 9: Write Process

The above figure shows a step by step approach of the writing process of this technology. In this
technology the information is stored in the binary form i.e. a series of ones and zeros. To write a one
an indentation is created whereas no indentation is made for zero. This is how the technology knows
where data is written and where not. The write process is based on the thermo mechanical writing.
Heaters are integrated in to the cantilevers which are shown in the above figure in light blue colour.
These heaters are heated by passing an electrical pulse. The cantilever tip is heated up to
approximately four hundred degree Celsius and the heat is transferred to the polymer media to soften
it. The transfer of heat is made more effective by applying a force on the cantilever tip so that it
touch’s the polymer media. Once the media is softened an indentation is made by pressing the
cantilever tip against the media. The indentation shows that a one is written. This is highlighted in the
last process of the above figure.

THE READ PROCESS:

Figure 10: Read Process

The above process shows the read process of the technology. The read process is based on the
thermo-mechanical sensing technique. In the read process the other heater (read heater) is used.
This is highlighted in the above figure in orange. The tip is once again heated through this resistive
heater to temperature of around three hundred to three hundred fifty degree Celsius. The principle
behind the reading process is that as the distance between the polymer media and cantilever tip
reduces there is an increase in cooling due to which temperature decreases and resistance of the
heater increase. Here once the cantilever is heated it is pressed on the polymer media by applying a
mechanical force. As soon as the cantilever tip finds an indentation there is a decrease in distance
between the media and the tip. This results in increased cooling which leads to increase in the
resistance of the resistive heater. This change in resistance is easily picked up by a sensor and a one
is read.

THE ERASE PROCESS:

In the write process we have seen that an indentation is made on the polymer media by transfer of
heat through a cantilever tip. This leads to softening of the polymer media and an indentation is made.
However after this rapid cooling of the polymer media is done which results in the formation of a
metastable indentation. This indentation can be erased by writing or making another indentation next
to an existing indentation i.e. when a new indentation is made to write a one, it is written next an
existing indentation. By transfer of heat from the cantilever tip to the polymer media an indentation is
written and also the polymer media softens and thereby relaxing the earlier formed indentation thus it
returns to its original place. Thus a new indentation is made and an earlier one is erased.

OTHER KEY PLAYER’S IN THE MARKET:

Nanochip is a company based in California founded in the year 1996.It’s primary aim is to bring
Microelectromechanical systems memory to the consumer electronics market as early as possible.
The company employs around fifty people worldwide who are dedicatedly working on this technology.
Nanochip is a fabless semiconductor company and will rely on third party manufacturer’s sources.
Nanochip is trying to reach terabytes of data on a chipset that too at a substantially lower cost
compared to flash memory solutions.

JK&B Capital is a venture capital firm focussing in the areas of software, IT and communication
markets with more than 1.1 billion US dollar under management. The company was founded in the
year 1996 and has built a reputation of generating exceptional returns for investors by identifying and
investing in companies that are working on technologies that could bring great transformations to the
world’s information economy.
Some of the companies in the company’s portfolio are EZ chip, Navarro, Selectica, Exodus, and
Commerce One. Nanochip was one company where they invested around 20 million US dollars in the
year 2004.

New Enterprise Associates is another venture capitalist firm founded in the year 1978 in California
with offices around the world. It has also invested in Nanochip. 60% of the venture capitalist funds
goes in funding seed and start up stage companies.

Intel Capital makes equity investments in innovative technology start ups and companies worldwide.
The global investment organization was formed in the year 1991 and since then invested around 10
billion dollars in around a thousand companies in 47 countries. In all its investment companies around
175 companies have become public and registered at various stock exchanges around the world 241
were either merged or acquired. These figures speak for themselves of how Intel is participating in
bringing break through innovations to the market and its commitment in investing in start up
companies. Nanochip is one company where Intel capital has shown interest and invested around 14
million US dollars in the year 2008 for development of advanced Microelectromechanical systems
silicon data storage chips. This financing will allow Nanochip to complete its first prototype for support
design verification testing and limited customer sampling.

HP is an American International firm based in California. It has become one of the largest information
technology companies in the world. HP specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data
storage and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. It has also involved
itself in MEMS storage system and has a probe storage program. The HP program differs from IBM’s
technology in the sense that electron beams are fired from each tip to the recording material.

ST Microelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered

in Geneva, Switzerland. It has turnover of around 9 billion US dollars and 52000 employees. ST
microelectronics had earlier worked with HP on MEMS technology where ST had made inkjet print
heads for HP but now ST wants to focus on MEMS probe storage technology.

Carnegie Mellon University is also doing research on this technology. Their mechanism consists of an
actuator and sensor that keeps the nano tips at an accurate distance above the recording surface so
that it can accommodate microscopic variations in surface height.
INDUSTRY REQUIREMENTS OF MASS STORAGE (HUGE POTENTIAL):

Mass storage involves data archiving.

1. Healthcare including Medical imaging.

• Major companies involved in mass storage are GE Healthcare, Philips Medical, 3M Health
Information System, Siemens Medical, McKesson Corp., Capgemini.

• In Medical imaging:

CAT scan: 40MB

Digital X-ray: 60 MB
Multi slice CAT scan: 500 MB
Cardiac Video: 3 GB

2. Gas & oil exploration.

• Major companies are Schlumberger, Shell oil, Texaco, Gulf oil, Belco Oil & Gas,
British Petroleum.

3. Pharmaceutical.

• Major companies include Pfizer (US), Glaxo Smith Kline (UK), Roche (Switzerland),
Bayer (Germany), Bristol-Mayer (US).

4. Other industries include Computing Industry, Entertainment Industry, Video gaming,

Simulation & Modelling, Animation, Homeland Security.
 CONCLUSION:

These emerging technologies provide the answers to increased data storage being demanded by
everyone today and will open a new era in data storage. These technologies currently are under
development but both of them will be a winner in times ahead. Holographic data storage systems
have already demonstrated of 500GB of data capacity but this is not available commercially. One
major challenge that it faces is relating to cost factor. To make it a mass market acceptable data
storage technology it should be made available at competitive price. The current aim is to pack more
than Tera Byte of data on single disc and hopefully this technology will be out in market soon as there
is lot of competition in the research and development being done in this technology.

The other data storage technology based on MEMS has produced a prototype and it won’t be long
before this technology hits the market. However some concerns regarding this technology is the
overall system reliability. This technology is the first one to demonstrate high density storage with the
largest two dimensional Atomic force microscope array. One challenge that this technology faces is
the wear and tear of the tip and medium. However one should remain optimistic and wait for the
technology to come to market.
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