SONY

New super-fine metal particles and coating technology

Each LTO generation requires engineering enhancements in order to reach the higher storage and performance levels. Sony LTO5 cartridges are adopting newly enhanced super-fine metal particles, which compared to LTO4 cartridges, have been reduced by 75% in length and 50% in volume. Sony has also developed a new dispersion technology which enables these super-fine metal particles to be evenly homogenized into the magnetic coating material. Together this dispersion and new coating technology, deliver an ultra smooth contact surface between the Non-Magnetic Under Layer and Ultra-Thin Coat Magnetic Layer, allowing for a magnetic layer that is less than 100nm in thickness. The result is Sony LTO5 cartridges that achieve a +3dB greater signal-to-noise ratio improvement as compared to LTO4 cartridges, which leads to stable read/write performance in a variety of drive usage environments.

Sony's eco-friendly LTO

Sony strives towards developing an environmentally responsible manufacturing process, and Sony LTO manufacturing is no exception. Sony LTO cartridge shells are manufactured with recycled resin made from regenerated polycarbonate materials disposed and collected from Sony group companies. This is helping Sony reduce virgin resin usage by 95* tons per year. Sony looks at overall environment conservation measures in manufacturing and transportation processes by following the RoHS Directive prohibiting the use of six environment-hazardous substances, viz. Mercury, Cadmium, Lead, Hexavalent-chromium, PBB, and PBDE. (Sony's business establishments** worldwide have obtained ISO14001.)With the introduction of library packs, Sony further reduced the usage of plastic materials in packaging by 65%***. These form-fitting tray's help eliminate the need for individual plastic cases, while reducing shrink-warp waste from individual cartridges. The library packs are ideal for users who require bar coded product and allowing for a quick visual inspection of the content. The space-saving design allows cartridges to be stacked up to 10 tiers high****.

*: Based on the actual usage from Jan. to Dec. '09
**: Including all of Sony Group's manufacturing and non-manufacturing establishments.
***: Comparison with the amount of packaging plastics when 20 pieces of a single type of Sony data cartridge are used.
****: Storage condition:60-95°F(16-35°C), 10 tiered packs with full 20 cartridges.