CD-Technology

Introduction

A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data.

Merits

Ease of use and durability of media, as well as High storage volumes. Random access capability as compared to tapes. Data is not affected by electrical/ magnetic fields. Does not require maintenance or special handling methods.

Permanence of data is ideal for distribution of error free software as well as music, video etc.

Working Principles

A CD is made from 1.2 mm thick, almost-pure polycarbonate plastic and weighs approximately 1520 grams. From the center outward components are

at the center (spindle) hole, the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the information (data) area, and the rim.

Working Principles

A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface to make it reflective. Protected by a film of lacquer that is normally spin coated directly on top of the reflective layer, upon which the label print is applied. CD data are stored as a series of tiny indentations known as pits,

encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer.

Working Principles

Working Principles

The areas between pits are known as lands. Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 m in length.

The distance between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 m.

A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer.

Protective Lacquer Coating Reflective Aluminum Layer Land Pit Land Pit Land
CD Physical Layers

Polycarbonate Substrate

Working Principles

The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in intensity in the light reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the data can be read from the disc. The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, Non-return-to-zero, inverted (NRZI) encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no change indicates a zero.

Working Principles

Working Principles

CDs are susceptible to damage from both daily use and environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, so that defects and dirt on the clear side can be out of focus during playback.

Consequently, CDs suffer more scratch damage on the label side whereas scratches on the clear side can be repaired.
Initial music CDs were known to suffer from "CD rot", or "laser rot", in which the internal reflective layer degrades.

CAV

Standard hard disks and floppy disks spin the disk at a constant speed. Regardless of where the heads are, the same speed is used to turn the media. This is called constant angular velocity (CAV) because it takes the same amount of time for a turn of the 360 degrees of the disk at all times. The tracks on the inside of the disk are much smaller than those on the outside of the disk.

CAV

CAV & CLV

This constant speed means that when the heads are on the outside of the disk they will traverse a much longer linear path than they do when on the inside. The linear velocity is not constant. CD-ROMs take a different approach. They adjust the speed of the motor so that the linear velocity of the disk is always constant.

CLV

When the head is on the outside of the disk, the motor runs slower, and when it is on the inside, it runs faster. This is done to ensure that the same amount of data always goes past the read head in a given period of time. This is called constant linear velocity or CLV.

CLV

X Rated Speed

The speed of the spindle motor is controlled by the microcontroller. It tied to the positioning of the head actuator. The data signals coming from the disk are used to synchronize the speed of the motor and make sure that the disk is turning at the correct rate. The first CD-ROMs operated at the same speed as standard audio CD players: roughly 210 to 539 RPM, depending on the location of the heads.

X Rated Speed

This results in a standard transfer rate of 150 KB/s. By increasing the speed of the spindle motor, and using sufficiently powerful electronics, it would be possible to increase the transfer rate substantially. There's no advantage to reading a music CD at double the normal speed, but there definitely is for data CDs. Thus the double-speed, or 2X CD-ROM was born. It followed in short order with 3X, 4X and even faster drives.

X Rated Speed
Characteristic Drive Speed Transfer Rate Application Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) Variable Fixed Conventional CD-ROM drives Constant Angular Velocity(CAV) Fixed Variable hard disk drives, floppy disk drives

X Rated Speed

Speed change time:amount of time required to change the speed of the spindle motor as the head moves radically across the disk. Seek time: time taken to move the heads to a specific part of the disc for doing a read operation. Latency: amount of time taken for the correct data block to come underneath the head.

CD Formats

Compact Disk Digital Audio (CD-DA)

The first CD format that which defined the audio CD used in all regular CD players, called CD Digital Audio or CD-DA for short. The specifications for this format were codified in the first CD standard, the red book" that was developed by Philips and Sony. The "red book" was published in 1980, and actually specifies not just the data format for digital audio but also the physical specifications for compact disks:

the size of the media, the spacing of the tracks, etc.

Compact Disk Digital Audio (CD-DA)

CD-DA audio uses a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, which is roughly double the highest frequency audible by humans (around 22 kHz.) Each sample is 16 bits in size, and the sampling is done in stereo. Therefore, each second of sound takes (44,100 * 2 * 2) bytes of data, which is 176,400 bytes.

Compact Disk Digital Audio (CD-DA)

Audio data is stored on the disk in blocks, which are also sometimes called sectors. Each block holds 2,352 bytes of data, with an additional number of bytes used for error detection and correction, as well as control structures. Therefore, 75 blocks are required for each second of sound.

Compact Disk Digital Audio (CD-DA)

On a standard 74-minute CD then, the total amount of storage is (2,352 * 75 * 74 * 60), which is 783,216,000 bytes or about 747 MB. From this derives the handy rule of thumb that a minute of CD audio takes about 10 MB, uncompressed.

CD-ROM Digital Data (CD-ROM)

The standard that describes how digital data are to be recorded on compact disk media went through several different iterations before the format was finalized.

The first step was the creation of the original data format standard, called the "yellow book", by Philips and Sony in 1983.

CD-ROM Digital Data (CD-ROM)

Under the data CD standard, there are two modes defined:

Mode 1: This is the standard data storage mode used by virtually all standard data CDs.

The data is laid out in basically the same way as it is in standard audio CD format, except that the 2,352 bytes of data in each block are broken down further.

CD-ROM Digital Data (CD-ROM)

Mode 1:

2,048 of these bytes are for "real" data.

The other 304 bytes are used for an additional level of error detecting and correcting code. This is necessary because data CDs cannot tolerate the loss of a handful of bits now and then, the way audio CDs can.

CD-ROM Digital Data (CD-ROM)

Mode 2:

Mode 2 data CDs are the same as mode 1 CDs except that the error detecting and correcting codes are omitted. The reason is that mode 2 format provides a more flexible vehicle for storing types of data that do not require high data integrity: for example, graphics and video can use this format. Furthermore, different kinds can be mixed together; this is the basis for the extensions to the original data CD standards known as CD-ROM Extended Architecture, or CD-ROM XA.

CD-ROM Digital Data (CD-ROM)

CD-ROM Extended Architecture (CDROM XA)

Finding the existing CD audio and CD data specifications too restricting, a new format called CD-ROM Extended Architecture or CD-ROM XA was developed by Philips, Sony and Microsoft. Disks that use CD-ROM XA can mix standard data CD mode 1 and mode 2 tracks, allowing the mixing of standard data along with other types of data. The mode 2 tracks are further divided into two types:

Form 1 and Form 2.

CD-ROM Extended Architecture (CDROM XA)

Between all these different formats and modes, CD-ROM XA disks can store data, audio, compressed audio, video, compressed video, graphics and others. The mixing together of these different types of information is called interleaving

CD-Interactive (CD-I)

In 1986, Philips and Sony again joined forces to create the CD-Interactive or CD-I format. This concept was quite ambitious, with the goal to develop both a format and a special new type of hardware to use it. In some ways this was the first serious attempt at what we now call "multimedia and computer programs, and hardware sold to handle all of these and connect to a television screen for output.

Recordable CD (CD-R)

In 1990, part II of the "orange book" published by Philips, specified the characteristics and format of a recordable CD, or CD-R. CD-R is also sometimes called CD-WORM or CDWO, where WO means "write once" and WORM "write once read many. CD-R media starts with a polycarbonate substrate, just like regular CDs do. Instead of physical etching this substrate, it is stamped with a spiral pre-groove, similar to the spiral found on a regular CD except that it is intentionally "wobbled".

Recordable CD (CD-R)

This groove is what the CD-R drive uses to follow the data path of the disk during recording. On top of the polycarbonate, a special photosensitive dye layer is deposited; on top of that a metal reflective layer is applied (such as a gold or silver alloy) and then finally, a plastic protective layer. It is these different layers that give CD-R media their different visual appearance from regular CDs.

Recordable CD (CD-R)

The key to the media is the dye layer (and the special laser used in the drives.) When light from a specific type and intensity of laser is applied to it, it heats up rapidly and changes its chemical composition.

As a result, the area "burned" reflects less light than the areas that do not have the laser applied.
This system is designed to mimic the way light reflects cleanly off a "land" on a regular CD, but is scattered by a "pit", so an entire disk is created from burned and non-burned areas.

Recordable CD (CD-R)

Since the media is being physically altered by a process of heat and chemistry, the change is permanent and irreversible. Once any part of the CD has been written, the data is there forever.

Some drives allow you to record some information in one sitting, and then more information later on, if the disk is not yet full.

This is called multi-session recording, and requires a CD player capable of recognizing multi-session disks in order to use the burned disk.

Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)

The specifications for CD-RW are codified as part III of the "orange book" published by Philips. CD-RW uses much more advanced technology in order to accomplish its goal of making compact disks both writeable and rewriteable. CD-RW media are formed in the same basic way that CD-R media are. They start with a polycarbonate base and a molded spiral pre-groove to provide a base for recording.

Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)

The recording layer for CD-RW is different of course than it is for CD-R. The problem with CD-R is that the dye layer used is permanently changed during the writing process, which prevents rewriting.

CD-RW media replaces this dye with a special phase-change recording layer.
Now, this layer comprised of a specific chemical compound that can change states when energy is applied to it, and can also change back again.

Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)

The material used in CD-RW disks has the property that when it is heated to one temperature and then cooled, it will crystallize. While if it is heated to a higher temperature and then cools, it will form a non-crystalline structure when cooled. When the material is crystalline, it reflects more light than when it doesn't; so in the crystalline state it is like a "land" and in the non-crystalline state, a "pit".

Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)

By using two different laser power settings, it is possible to change the material from one state to another, allowing the rewriting of the disk. The change of phase at each point on the disk's spiral is what encodes ones and zeros into the disk. The spiral and other structures are the same as for CD-R; what changes is how the pits are encoded.

Rewriteable CD (CD-RW)

CD-RW media have one very important drawback: they don't emulate the pits and lands of a regular CD as well as the dye layer of a regular CD-R, and therefore, they are not backward compatible to all regular audio CD players and CD-ROM drives. Also, the fact that they are written multiple times means that they are multi-session disks by definition, and so are not compatible with non-multi-session-capable drives.

Other Formats

Photo-CD

Developed in the early 90s by Kodak and Philips (who seems to have its hand in everything CDrelated), an implementation of CD-ROM extended architecture designed to hold photographic images.

Video-CD (VCD)

Support for a special CD format for the storing of compressed video information is defined as part of the "white book" specification. Through the use of MPEG compression it is possible to store 74 minutes of full-motion video in the same space that uncompressed "red book" audio uses! This format is called video CD or sometimes VCD.

Other Formats

CD + Graphics (CD + G) A special audio compact disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc.