User manual KODAK EASYSHARE EASYSHARE ONE RELEASE NOTE

[. . . ] KODAK Ultima Lifetime Discussion The KODAK Ultima CD-R disc is fundamentally the same as the Gold Ultima CD-R media except the reflective layer material is changed. The Ultima disc incorporates an alloy containing 24 karat gold which has been selected to provide maximum performance, as well as improved stability relative to pure silver. [. . . ] By necessity, data lifetime must be tested under accelerated aging conditions which are well outside normal storage conditions. These results must then be used to project an anticipated lifetime at actual storage conditions. The key problem is how this projection is to be made. Estimating media life would be difficult enough if lifetime depended only on temperature. Unfortunately, humidity also plays a significant role. Atmospheric pollutants could also have an effect, but due to the encapsulation of the recording layers in a polycarbonate/lacquer package this is considered a low risk, and is usually ignored. During the early stages of evaluation, it is common practice to select a single stressful condition which is known to cause media failure within a manageable time span of several weeks. In the case of silver-based CD-R media Kodak has selected a condition which is quite extreme, consisting of a temperature of 80°C, a relative humidity of 85%, and an atmosphere of local air (which will contain some of the aforementioned pollutants). We then assume that the longer the media survives under these conditions, the more stable discs will be under recommended storage conditions (25°C, 40%RH). We have tested other manufacturers' 100% silver media as well as our own Ultima media under these conditions. The results are summarized in Table 1. Manufacturer Kodak Ultima Company A Company B Company C Company D Company E Company F 80/85 Survival Time > 3 weeks <1 week <1 week <1 week <3 weeks <3 weeks <3 weeks Cause of Failure1 none yet extensive corrosion overall reticulation package delamination blisters patchy corrosion contrast loss Table 1. 80/85 survival times for various manufacturers' silver CD-R media These survival times cannot, by themselves, be used to predict the lifetime of data on discs stored at recommended conditions, but they are a good indicator on a relative basis. Accurate lifetime estimates require extensive testing over many months, at a variety of temperature and humidity conditions, and using a statistical population of discs. The test plan which was utilized to predict lifetime for Kodak's Gold Ultima media required over 210 discs, stored at 5 different temperature-humidity conditions, and tested for performance on over 40 separate occasions over the course of more than one year. 1 Failure was considered to be the time at which the maximum BLER (block error rate) on a fully recorded disc exceeded 50. [. . . ] RGb WCNRb 2X full surface write Rtop I3/Itop I11/Itop BLER 4X full surface write Rtop I3/Itop I11/Itop BLER 6X full surface write Rtop I3/Itop I11/Itop BLER 2X Power Series I3/Itop @ =0 I11/Itop @ =0 3TMJIT @ =0 50Klux/3day 50Klux/5day pass pass >. 05 none <+-15% 65% >35dB 0. 080 min. 39dB min. >65% 0. 3-0. 7 >0. 6 <220 71% 0. 36 0. 63 1 >65% 0. 3-0. 7 >0. 6 <220 71% 0. 33 0. 62 1 >65% 0. 3-0. 7 >0. 6 <220 71% 0. 33 0. 62 1 none none none 0. 30 0. 64 31/32ns Type SA Media White Paper version 0. 95 06/12/01 4 [. . . ]