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Project Silica
Project Silica quartz glass
containing 75.6 GB of data plus
error redundancy codes.
T
he demand for long-term data
storage is reaching unprecedented
levels. By 2023, Microsoft estimate
that over 100 zettabytes of data will
be stored in the cloud. Operating at
such scales requires a fundamental
rethinking of how we build largescale storage systems, as well as the
underlying storage technologies that
underpin them.
Microsoft’s Project Silica in collaboration with the University of
Southampton Optoelectronic Research
Centre, where researchers originally
demonstrated how to store data in
quartz glass with femtosecond lasers,
is developing the first-ever storage
technology designed and built from
the media up, for the cloud.
An infrared laser encodes data in
glass by creating layers of three-dimensional nanoscale gratings and
deformations at various depths and
What the zetta?
Yes, we all know what giga means,
probably tera and even peta, but
zetta? Well it’s not the next prefix
up from peta, that’s exa. It’s the one
up from exa, so not just big, but
unimaginably huge.
A zettabyte is one sextillion
bytes, with unit symbol ZB.
1ZB = 10007 bytes = 1021bytes =
1000000000000000000000 bytes
= one billion terabytes.
Build a 100ZB stack of 1cm-thick
1TB SSDs, and you’ll reach the
moon… and back. That’s a lot of data.
angles. Machine learning algorithms
read the data back by decoding images
and patterns that are created as polarised light shines through the glass.
The lasers encode data in ‘voxels’
(volume-pixel) – the three-dimensional
equivalent of a pixel. Unlike other
optical storage media that write data
on the surface of something, Project
Silica stores data within the glass
itself. A 2-mm-thick piece of glass,
for instance, can contain more than
100 layers of voxels.
Data is encoded in each voxel by
changing the strength and orientation
of laser pulses that physically deform
the glass. It’s somewhat like creating
upside down icebergs at a nanoscale
level, with different depths and sizes
and grooves that make them unique.
The hard silica glass can withstand
being boiled in hot water, baked in an
oven, microwaved, flooded, scoured,
demagnetised and other environmental
threats that can destroy priceless historic archives or cultural treasures if
things go wrong for more traditional
digital storage media.
The Microsoft team, working with
Warner Bros has successfully stored
and retrieved the entire 1978 Superman movie on a piece of glass 75mm
square by 2mm thick. It was the first
proof-of-concept test for Project Silica.
DNA?
Glass is not the only medium scientists
are researching – they are looking to
nature for inspiration. DNA is one
attractive possibility because it is extremely dense (up to about 1 exabyte
per cubic millimeter) and durable
(with a half-life of over 500 years).
Although there are challenges around
high cost and very slow read and write
times, in June 2019, scientists reported
that all 16GB of Wikipedia had been
encoded into synthetic DNA.
Hand held enclosures
standard & waterproof
Hammond
www.hammondmfg.com/1553.htm
www.hammondmfg.com/1553W.htm
01256 812812
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8
Practical Electronics | April | 2020
