NEW ENCODING AND DEMODULATION FORMAT FOR ULTRA-HIGH TRANSFER RATE CD-ROM

THE AUDIO COMPACT DISC (CD) IS RENOWNED AS ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL CONSUMER ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS IN HISTORY. A RELATED PRODUCT, THE CD-ROM (READ ONLY MEMORY) IS THE MOST EXCITING PRODUCT SINCE THE AUDIO CD. HOWEVER, CD-ROM PERFORMANCE TODAY IS LIMITED BY THE USE OF A SINGLE LASER DIODE IN THE OPTICAL HEAD. TODAY'S CD-ROM HAS LOW TRANSFER RATES (150 KB/SEC., CONTINUOUS), SLOW ACCESS TIMES (TYPICALLY 0.3 TO 1.0 SEC.), CUMBERSOME ERROR DETECTION AND CORRECTION SCHEMES, AND INEFFICIENT ENCODING AND DEMODULATION FORMAT. THESE LOW TRANSFER RATES LIMIT CD-ROM DRIVES FROM DELIVERING REAL-TIME MULTIMEDIA (E.G., COMBINED AUDIO AND VIDEO DATA) AND HIGH SPEED DATA TRANSFER COMPARABLE TO THE BEST MAGNETIC HARD-DRIVE TECHNOLOGY. RESEARCHERS ARE DEVELOPING AN EXCITING NEW TECHNOLOGY, THE MICROLASER ARRAYS, TO PRODUCE A MULTICHANNEL OPTICAL HEAD FOR RETRIEVING DATA OFF CD-ROM. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A MICROLASER ARRAY MULTICHANNEL OPTICAL HEAD (WITH 8, 16, 32, ETC., ELEMENTS) IN CD-ROM DRIVES COULD IMMEDIATELY IMPROVE THE TRANSFER RATE BY THE NUMBER OF CHANNELS USING THE PRESENT CD-ROM FORMAT. HOWEVER, THE PRESENT CD-ROM ENCODING AND DEMODULATION FORMAT, TAILORED FOR A SINGLE-CHANNEL READ-OUT, HAS BUILT-IN RESTRICTIONS. INVESTIGATORS ARE EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTIONALITY OF CD-ROM DRIVES USING THE MULTI-CHANNEL READ-OUT WITH THE PRESENT CD-ROM FORMAT, AND A NEW ENCODING AND DEMODULATION FORMAT OPTIMIZED FOR MULTICHANNEL READ-OUT. THE COMBINATION OF MULTIPLE CHANNELS AND AN EFFICIENT ENCODING FORMAT IS EXPECTED TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTIONALITY OF CD-ROM.