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The following are details of the Digital Data Storage focused program
area announced by the Advanced Technology Program (ATP).  The ATP,
managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, funds
high-risk, cost-shared technology development programs selected and 
carried out by private industry.  For more information, please contact
the following:

1-(800)-ATP-FUND [1-(800)-287-3863]
email: atp@micf.nist.gov
fax: (301) 926-9524
A430 Administration Building
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001

For technical information, contact:
Tom Leedy, Program Manager
(301) 975-2410
e-mail: leedy@micf.nist.gov
fax: (301) 926-9524

Summary:

New focused technology programs announced by the Advanced
Technology Program in December, 1994, include a five-year, $125
million program on Digital Data Storage.  This program will
concentrate on technical objectives such as increasing tape and
disk storage density, the development of better performing
magnetic recording heads, new lubricants and surface finishes,
more reliable tracking devices, improvements in signal processing
electronics, and significant advancement in the state of the art
in data storage and retrieval software to improve hardware
performance.  By assessing the industry to exploit the revolution in
digital storage, the program will help American companies to
expand digital storage markets and market share dramatically.

More:

ATP FOCUSED PROGRAM: Digital Data Storage

FY 1995 NIST Funding: $15 million
Estimated Total FY 1995-2000 NIST Funding: $125 million

Potential for U.S. Economic Benefit:

The nation's digital storage industry -- maker of the tapes, disks,
and other gear that have become the archives and the retrieval
tools of the information age -- achieved its world-leading status by
doubling storage capacity about every three years. Now, with
competitors matching that rate of progress and new storage-hungry
services rolling onto the information highway, industry observers
say regaining lost market shares and pulling away from the global
pack will require an annual improvement rate of about 60
percent -- or more than twice as fast as today's blistering pace.

By fostering industrial alliances, the new ATP focused program on
digital data storage aims to build the springboard for that kind
of ambitious leap in technological capability and marketplace
performance.  As the world goes digital~storing mountains of
textual, audio, graphical, and video information as 1's and
0's~opportunities are multiplying in business and consumer
markets. For example, the visual communications market, which
includes video-on-demand services and video server hardware, is
growing at an annual rate of 40 percent and is projected by some
to reach $2.5 billion by 1996. Companies adept at incorporating
new technologies will have a strategic advantage in existing and
emerging markets. For the domestic industry as a whole, that
advantage would advance efforts to establish U.S. formats as
international standards, which would be a boon to exports.

In helping U.S. industry to move to the head of the curve of
technology development and application, the program also will
better position U.S. companies to compete in consumer markets now
dominated by soon-to-be-outdated analog storage products made by
foreign manufacturers. In turn, a technologically advanced,
globally competitive data storage industry will enhance the
competitive prospects of computer manufacturers as well as the
telecommunications, entertainment, and other important user
industries.

Technology Challenge and Industry Commitment:

The new focused program will concentrate on accomplishing six
technical objectives, established on the basis of industry input
received through white papers submitted by five individual
companies and three collaborations representing more than 40
firms, which account for more than 90 percent of U.S. data
storage industry revenues. Additional input was gathered through
an ATP-sponsored workshop.

Media: Push the ultimate limits of magnetic recording capacity by
increasing storage densities to 10 billion to 100 billion bits
per square inch (6.45 cm**-2) for disks and to 1 trillion bytes
per cubic inch (16.39 cm**-3) for tapes; for electro-optical
disks, develop new materials to increase storage density and
improve performance.

Heads: Develop technologies for high-performance magnetic
recording heads that are vastly superior to today's state of the
art, and significantly improve magneto-optical record and sense
technologies.

Tribology: Develop new lubricants and surface finishes, because,
as the space between heads and media diminishes, separation
cannot be assured, creating the potential for wear and increased
error rates.

Tracking: Develop reliable micropositioning devices for high-
precision placement of sensing devices over data tracks to
achieve high signal-to-noise rates.

Channel electronics: Improve signal-processing electronics to
achieve very low error rates.

Software: Significantly advance the state of the art in data
storage and retrieval software over the range extending from
error detection and correction within storage units and disk
controllers to management of menageries of data storage systems.

Significance of ATP Funds:

In establishing a comprehensive set of technical goals far beyond
the capabilities of individual firms or joint ventures, the ATP
focused program will help companies and research organizations to
pool their talents, expertise, and resources. Through
collaborations that minimize risks and costs, the industry can
make large strides in innovation that lead to markedly superior
technologies beyond the capabilities of competitors. Because of
today~s stiff competition in markets for digital data storage
products, U.S. firms must concentrate almost exclusively on
rapid, but incremental, improvements to existing products, which
are quickly matched or outdone by other companies.  Research
addressing longer term challenges is an acknowledged industry
need, cited, for example, in separate technology roadmaps
developed by the National Storage Industry Consortium and the
Optoelectronics Industry Development Association. Both call for
concerted efforts aimed at fundamentally new and better storage
technologies, the expected outcomes of the new ATP program.

Advances in data storage technology are important to national
security and to the missions of federal agencies, including some
sponsoring research in the area. The projects are aligned closely
with the missions of the funding agencies and, collectively, do
not address the broad range of technology challenges and needs
confronting the commercial data storage industry. In a recent
survey of the electronics industry's technology needs and
priorities, conducted as part of the government-industry National
Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, mass data storage was
singled out as one of the key electronic-component technologies
warranting increased emphasis in federal R&D efforts.

Shared efforts concentrating on early-stage needs and obstacles
can reduce overall R&D costs and accelerate the U.S. digital data
storage industry's progress toward developing technologies
critical to ensuring that it will be a top performer in a
worldwide market projected to grow tenfold, to $1 trillion,
during the next decade.For information about eligibility, how to
apply, and cost-sharing requirements, contact the Advanced
Technology Program: 

1-(800)-ATP-FUND [(800)-287-3863]
email: atp@micf.nist.gov
fax: (301) 926-9524
A430 Administration Building
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001

For technical information, contact:
Tom Leedy, Program Manager
(301) 975-2410
e-mail: leedy@micf.nist.gov
fax: (301) 926-9524