Today Pioneer announced [JP] they – as the first company in the world – managed to develop a 16-layer optical disc with a capacity of 400 GB. In other words, each layer boasts the capacity of a 25 GB Blu-ray disc currently available for retail.

Pioneer said the new discs will be compatible with existing Blu-ray hardware but are read-only at the moment. The company is currently trying to develop recordable discs offering the same capacity. Pioneer succeeded in reducing noise coming from adjacent layers through a special kind of disc structure. The company said they drew on experiences gathered in the manufacturing of DVDs.

The prototype of the read-only version will be showcased during the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 to be held in Hawaii from July 13.