A terabyte of storage on a DVD disc?

HAIFA, Israel--Matteris doesn't think optical discs, even Blu-ray ones, hold enough storage.

The company, which spins out of Israel's technical university Technion, has devised a coating for 5.25 optical discs that can hold up to a terabyte of storage, according to Zohan Gendler, who runs the incubator at Technion. The incubator takes promising ideas concocted by professors, students and local entrepreneurs and turns them into companies.

The massive increase in storage (Blu-ray discs will hold 50GB while HD DVD will hold less) is a variant of holographic storage. Producing the discs, when mass manufacturing occurs, should only cost $2 to $3 dollars. The discs only need a 500-micron-thick layer of the coating.

"It stores in the volume (of the material), not just the surface," he said.

The company is in initial negotiations with brand name Japanese manufacturers.

The first discs will hold 500GB and be sold to corporations for storage. Later they will move into the high-definition entertainment market.