Huawei is advancing archive storage technology with the development of a new solution called the Magneto-Electric Disk (MED). Aiming to provide an alternative to traditional hard drives, this storage device merges tape and SSD technologies to deliver high capacity and low power consumption. The first-generation MED can hold up to 72 TB of data in a compact 7-inch housing and uses significantly less energy than standard HDDs. The MED was developed as part of Huawei's efforts to mitigate potential supply shortages of conventional hard drives, particularly given the US export restrictions to China. By combining tape storage, traditionally slow but reliable, with a high-speed SSD, Huawei has designed a hybrid storage solution that addresses both speed and efficiency needs.

Data is initially recorded on the SSD for quick access and is then written to the tape in sequential blocks for long-term storage. Frequently accessed data, or "warm" data, stays on the SSD for faster retrieval, while "cold" data, accessed less often, is stored on the tape. According to early specifications, a MED rack can store over 10 petabytes and consumes under 2,000 watts of power, significantly less than HDD-based storage. This efficiency could redefine data archiving, especially for large-scale data centers. Data throughput on the MED is projected to reach 8 GB/s, highlighting its potential to handle high-demand environments. The MED is expected to launch in 2025, with a second, more compact generation targeting a 3.5-inch form factor in 2026 or 2027.

Alice & Bob, a leading hardware developer in the race to fault tolerant quantum computers, today announced the tape out of a new chip expected to improve error rates with every qubit added, making it a prototype for the company's first error-corrected, logical qubit.

The 16-qubit quantum processing unit (QPU), Helium 1, is the first chip in Alice & Bob's roadmap combining cat qubits to run an error correction code. The company will be able to use this platform to create its first logical qubit with error rates lower than any existing single physical qubit. With the tape-out complete, the chip enters a characterization and calibration phase that will be followed by a release on the cloud.

FUJIFILM Corporation (President and CEO, Representative Director: Teiichi Goto) and IBM today announced the development of a 50 TB native tape storage system, featuring the world's highest native data tape cartridge capacity. Fujifilm has commenced production of a high-density tape cartridge for use with IBM's newest enterprise tape drive, the TS1170. The sixth-generation IBM 3592 JF tape cartridge incorporates a newly developed technology featuring fine hybrid magnetic particles to enable higher data storage capacity.

Innovations in achieving 50 TB Native Capacity
Fujifilm has succeeded in achieving this innovative cartridge capacity by evolving the technologies developed in previous tape generations. This involved enhancing both the areal recording density (the amount of data that can be recorded per square inch) and the overall recording area (the surface area capable of recording data).

In its recent Second Quarter of the Fiscal Year 2023 conference, Synopsys issued interesting information about the recent moves of chip developers and their usage of artificial intelligence. As the call notes, over 200+ chips have been taped out using Synopsys DSO.ai place-and-route (PnR) tool, making it a successful commercially proven AI chip design tool. The DSO.ai uses AI to optimize the placement and routing of the chip's transistors so that the layout is compact and efficient with regard to the strict timing constraints of the modern chip. According to Aart J. de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, "By the end of 2022, adoption, including 9 of the top 10 semiconductor vendors have moved forward at great speed with 100 AI-driven commercial tape-outs. Today, the tally is well over 200 and continues to increase at a very fast clip as the industry broadly adopts AI for design from Synopsys."

This is an interesting fact that means that customers are seeing the benefits of AI-assisted tools like DSO.ai. However, the company is not stopping there, and a whole suite of tools is getting an AI makeover. "We unveiled the industry's first full-stack AI-driven EDA suite, sydnopsys.ai," noted the CEO, adding that "Specifically, in parallel to second-generation advances in DSO.ai we announced VSO.ai, which stands for verification space optimization; and TSO.ai, test space optimization. In addition, we are extending AI across the design stack to include analog design and manufacturing." Synopsys' partners in this include NVIDIA, TSMC, MediaTek, Renesas, and IBM Research, all of which used AI-assisted tools for chip design efforts. A much wider range of industry players is expected to adopt these tools as chip design costs continue to soar as we scale the nodes down. With future 3 nm GPU costing an estimated $1.5 billion, 40% of that will account for software, and Synopsys plans to take a cut in that percentage.

FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. is pleased to announce the launch and availability of its FUJIFILM LTO Ultrium 9 Data Cartridge (LTO-9). Fujifilm's LTO-9 complies with the ninth generation LTO Ultrium standards for magnetic tape storage media, marking a new standard of performance for backing up and archiving large volumes of data. Fujifilm's LTO-9 uses proprietary technology to offer up to 45 TB of storage capacity (18 TB for non-compressed data), a 50% increase from the previous generation of LTO tape.

Magnetic tape is increasingly recognized as an ideal storage media for long term archival of high-volume data, safely at low-cost. In addition, tape has a significantly lower environmental impact as there is no need to have it constantly powered-on during data storage, thereby reducing CO2 emissions generated during its lifecycle by 95% when compared to hard disk drives (HDDs).

Magnetic tape storage is one of the oldest technologies used for storing data. The technology was invented way back in 1928, and it is almost 100 years old. By today's standards, the technology is considered to be slow, however, it offers something that no modern HDD or SDD offers. Today, in collaboration with Fujifilm, IBM has developed a Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) magnetic layer for LTO-8 tapes that are capable of storing an amazing 580 TeraBytes of data in a single cartridge. The new technology will enable the modern world to store ever-increasing data sizes we are now counting in zettabytes. To store all of that data, one would need a high-capacity storage device to store all of the "cold data" that doesn't need real-time processing and has information of value.

That is exactly why IBM and Fujifilm have been developing the LTO-8 tape drives that are capable of 580 TB of capacity in a single cartridge. The technology can achieve that capacity thanks to the Strontium Ferrite (SrFe), which is capable of 317Gb/in2 recording density. With 1255 meters of the tape, IBM and Fujifilm have been able to achieve this density metric.

Fujifilm, a Japanese company focused on photography, imaging, printing, and biotechnology, predicts that it can build a 400 terabyte cartridge using Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) technology. Thanks to a report by Blocks&Files, who was press-briefed by Fujifilm, we have some information on the future of tape storage. Tape storage uses Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, which is an open standard developed by IBM to ensure all tape-based storage devices use the same format, instead of proprietary magnetic formats. We are currently at the LTO-8 version of this technology, which was released in 2017. Currently, LTO-8 can hold 12 TB in a single cartridge.

Fujifilm, one of the remaining makers of tape storage, predicts that it can pack 400 TB of tape storage in the LTO-13 era. Starting from LTO-12, Fujifilm plans to deploy Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) technology, which is different from the current Barium Ferrite (BaFe). The problem with BaFe is that each new LTO generation uses smaller and smaller particles and that leads to some problems where a tape bit value can't be read, and magnetic polarities would be disturbed if particles get too small. 400 TB tape drives using LTO-13 should be in circulation around 2032/33 according to a Blocks&Files prediction. Below you can check out the table provided by Blocks&Files that shows LTO generations and their abilities.