Fujifilm Develops Organic Dye Coating Technology for Blue-Violet Laser Write-Once, Read-Many Optical Discs

Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 25, 2002 - (JCN Newswire) - Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce the development of next-generation blue-violet laser write-once, read-many (WORM) optical discs produced using an exclusive new organic dye coating technology that is ideally suited to mass production. The new discs are the world's first organic dye coated blue-violet laser WORM optical discs.

The new optical discs are produced using an ultra-high-precision spin coating technology to apply a newly developed organic dye to an optimized substrate. The organic dye is then covered with a 0.1mm ultra-high-precision cover layer. Using a recording/playback device with a 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser and an objective lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.85, the discs offer storage capacities of up to 23.3GB, approximately five times the capacity of current 12cm diameter single-sided DVDs*1. As a result, it is possible to record up to two hours of the digital HDTV broadcasting that is expected to gain widespread acceptance in the near future.

Fujifilm plans to aggressively develop its new blue-violet laser WORM optical disc technology for Blu-ray Discs*2, and will work to ensure that it is incorporated into the Blu-ray Disc standards family. In addition, Fujifilm has also confirmed that its new technology is capable of supporting the back-to-back bonded 0.6mm disc format proposed by Toshiba and NEC for next-generation DVDs.

Main Features of the New Optical Disc Technology

Organic dye coating technology features:

(1) 23.3GB high-capacity storage

(2) 36Mbps/72Mbps high-speed data transfer

(3) Simple disc structure ideally suited to mass production

(4) Can be produced using existing manufacturing technologies and equipment infrastructure for dye-coated CD-R and DVD-R discs

Thin film bonded high-precision cover layer technology features:

(5) Cover layer thickness variation of only 100m2m ensures extremely uniform disc properties

(6) Extremely low disc warpage

*1 DVD: Back-to-back bonded 0.6mm thick optical discs with a diameter of 12cm that are used for audio, video and data storage. The storage capacity of single-sided, single-layer WORM DVDs is currently 4.7GB.

*2 Blu-ray Disc: A disc technology announced by a consortium of nine Japanese, European and Korean companies in February 2002. A standard for rewritable Blu-ray Discs was introduced in June 2002.

About Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.
Fuji Photo Film, Ltd. (TSE: 4901/NASDAQ FUJIY) is a world leader in the manufacture and marketing of imaging and information systems. Operations are carried out through Information Systems (materials and equipment for graphic arts and printing, office automation, medical imaging systems, industrial materials and data media); Imaging Systems (photographic films, optical products, motion picture films, cameras, digital cameras, videotapes, electronic imaging systems and magnetic tapes); and Photo Finishing Systems (photographic paper, photo finishing equipment and chemicals, photographic developing and printing services and digital colour printers). Fuji Film constantly strives to develop superior technologies and continues to cultivate an imaging and information culture. As a global company fully trusted by both customers and society itself, Fuji Film aims to make innovative use of the most advanced technologies to create beautiful images and to provide the imaging, information, and document solutions that will best meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of the world community.