The press releases on this website are provided for historical reference purposes only. Please note that certain information may have changed since the date of release.

Tokyo, Japan - March 10, 2014 - Sony Corporation ("Sony") and Panasonic Corporation ("Panasonic") today announced that they have formulated "Archival Disc", a new standard for professional-use, next-generation optical discs, with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage*.

Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored. They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them robust media for long-term storage of content. Recognizing that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage going forward, particularly given the anticipated future growth in the archive market, Sony and Panasonic have been engaged in the joint development of a standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs.

These efforts resulted in the formulation of "Archival Disc", a new professional-use next-generation optical disc standard, for which the technology roadmap, logo, and specifications are outlined below.

* Basic agreement to jointly develop a standard for professional-use next generation optical discs originally announced on July 29, 2013

Roadmap

Both Sony and Panasonic aim to launch systems with a recording capacity of 300 GB per disc from summer 2015, onwards. In addition, both companies plan to leverage their respective technologies to further expand the recording capacity per disc to 500 GB and 1 TB.

Logo

The following logo has been designed to represent the "Archival Disc" professional-use next-generation optical disc standard.

In recent times, demand for archival capabilities has increased significantly in the film industry, as well as in cloud data centers that handle big data, where advances in network services have caused data volumes to soar.

Both Sony and Panasonic have successful experience working on the development of Blu-ray Disc™ technology. The two companies plan to actively promote this next-generation high-capacity optical disc standard in the professional field in order to offer an effective solution for protecting valuable data into the future.

Key Archival Disc specifications

Disc size (type) 300 GB (write-once) Optical parameter Wavelength λ=405 nm (nanometers), Numerical Aperture NA=0.85 Disc structure Double-sided Disc (3 layers/side), Land and Groove Format Track pitch 0.225μm (micrometers) Data bit length 79.5nm (nanometers) Error correction method Reed-Solomon Code

Crosstalk cancellation technology*1 and high-order Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) signal processing technology*2 have been employed to achieve both larger capacity and higher playback signal quality.

*1 This technology electrically removes crosstalk from the adjacent tracks that increase as the track pitch becomes narrower, to achieve high-quality playback performance.

*2 PRML is a signal processing technology that improves reproduction performance by allowing inter-symbol interference.

* Company names and/or product names mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective corporations.

About Sony Corporation

Sony Corporation is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, game, communications, key device and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. With its music, pictures, computer entertainment and online businesses, Sony is uniquely positioned to be the leading electronics and entertainment company in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of approximately $72 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013.

About Panasonic

Panasonic Corporation is a worldwide leader in the development and engineering of electronic technologies and solutions for customers in residential, non-residential, mobility and personal applications. Since its founding in 1918, the company has expanded globally and now operates over 500 consolidated companies worldwide, recording consolidated net sales of 7.30 trillion yen for the year ended March 31, 2013. Committed to pursuing new value through innovation across divisional lines, the company strives to create a better life and a better world for its customers. For more information about Panasonic, please visit the company's website at http://panasonic.net/ .