SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Apr. 23, 2001 - The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) reports that the next major milestone on its 5.25-inch Magneto-Optical (MO) technology roadmap has been realized. With shipments of 9.1 GB (14X) MO products that began early this year, the industry group has continued to deliver on its targeted backward-compatible capacity migration path critical to high-performance archival storage applications as well as many e-commerce and Internet applications. By integrating this new high-capacity MO solution into automated storage products- jukeboxes and libraries - quickly-accessible storage capacities of multiple terabytes are easily achieved.

The 9.1 GB technology- now supported by numerous suppliers including DISC, Hewlett-Packard, Maxell, Maxoptix, Plasmon, Sony, and Verbatim, as well as multiple applications software suppliers-has made great strides in regards to capacity and performance over the previous generation 5.2 GB (8X) products, which first appeared on the market in 1998. Furthermore, the technology provides full backward read compatibility with all previous 5.25-inch MO disk capacities, and full read/write compatibility with both 5.2 GB and 2.6 GB disks. The 9.1 GB technology is expected to become a European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) standard in the summer of 2001. OSTA's technology roadmap for MO storage is available at www.osta.org/html/mig/mo.gif.

The 9.1 GB MO technology features:

• magnetically-induced super resolution (MSR)
• land and groove recording
• data transfer rate of up to 6MB/sec
• 25 msec seek time (average)
• 660 nm laser diode
• 0.575 NA objective lens
• 0.3 mm/bit linear bit density
• 0.65 mm track pitch
• 3.3Gbit/in2 - a 75% increase in the aerial bit density from the 5.2GB technology

Magneto-optic technology continues to deliver high reliability, ruggedness, fast performance, and the option of either a rewritable format or a Write-Once Read-Many (WORM) format through the use of Continuous Composite Write (CCW) technology. This multiple function capability has made MO the technology of choice for many applications where high performance and permanence of data are requirements. The combination of high capacity, high performance and data permanence has made MO an ideal choice for a wide variety of markets, including archival document storage for financial institutions, telecommunications, medical applications, insurance companies, and government agencies as well as newer market applications such as e-commerce and internet storage.

About OSTA

The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) was incorporated as an international trade association in 1992 to promote the use of recordable optical technologies and products. The organization's membership includes optical product manufacturers and resellers from three continents, representing more than 85 percent of worldwide writable optical product shipments. They work to shape the future of the industry through regular meetings of CD/DVD, file interchange, high performance, market development, and planning committees. Interested companies worldwide are invited to join the organization and participate in its programs by contacting an OSTA representative at +1 805/963-3853, by fax +1 805/962-1541 or by addressing its Web site. More information on this technology and other optical technologies used widely today is available at the OSTA web site, www.osta.org.