LASER DISK DIGITAL BULK MEMORY (LDDBM)

IN ANY COMPUTER SYSTEM THERE ARE REQUIREMENTS FOR NONVOLATILE BULK MEMORY STORAGE/DATA RETRIEVAL. MAGNETIC DISK RECORDING HAS LONG BEEN THE POPULAR LOW COST METHOD FOR COMMERCIAL MEMORY, HOWEVER, IT HAS BEEN PLAGUED BY POOR RELIABILITY EVEN IN THE MOST BENIGN ENVIRONMENTS. A NEW TECHNOLOGY IS EMERGING THAT WOULD ELIMINATE THE DISADVANTAGES OF MAGNETIC RECORDING FOR HARSH ENVIRONMENT APPLICATIONS. THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY USES A LASER BEAM TO CAUSE A PHYSICAL CHANGE TO A RECORDING MEDIA AND IS REFERRED TO AS A LASER DISK OR OPTICAL DISK. WE WILL IDENTIFY THE APPLICATIONS OF THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY IN AVIONICS AND SPACE ENVIRONMENTS AND COMPARE THE SPECIFIC EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR SIZE, WEIGHT, POWER, INPUT/OUTPUT SPEEDS. A COST AND RELIABILITY BREAKDOWN WILL ALSO BE PERFORMED. THE RESULT WILL BE A TECHNICAL PATH TO ACHIEVE A 1 GIGABYTE CAPACITY SPACE QUALIFIED DRIVE WITH HIGH RELIABILITY FOR EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS. THIS DRIVE WILL BE BASED UPON MOUNTAIN OPTECH'S SEVERE ENVIRONMENT LAND-BASED UNIT CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION.