JPH11176020A - Optical disk, its manufacture, and information recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a disk capable of selecting recording form according to the importance degree of recording information by providing a rewritable recording area where an optical disk can rewrite recording information (RAM area) and a writing once recording area where the information can be recorded once (WO area). SOLUTION: By using the RAM area 3 in a draft area and the WO area 4 in a fair copy area, the occurrence of a miss that other data are superscribed on required data is prevented. A data file, etc., used by a user is recorded beforehand in a ROM area 2 and the required data file is read in from this area. Then, the data are processed, the new data are added to the data file, and the resultant processed data are superscribed and recorded in the RAM area 3. Since the RAM area 3 is rewritable any number of times, a user can amend the data until the user consents. When the processing is finished, the final processed data are recorded in the WO area 4.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a CD, a CD-R
OM, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-I, MD, DVD
In particular, the present invention relates to an optical disk in which a plurality of areas having different functions are mixed, a method of manufacturing the same, and an information recording method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as an optical disk in which a plurality of areas having different functions are mixed, an optical disk having a read-only ROM area and a rewritable RAM area is known (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-7223). This kind of optical disk is
It has the advantages of both a read-only disc and a rewritable disc in that a large amount of software can be copied using a ROM area and data can be written in a RAM area.

[0003]

In this type of optical disk, it is impossible that information recorded in the ROM area is erroneously overwritten, but information recorded in the RAM area is erroneously overwritten. Is there. In a floppy disk or the like, overwriting prohibition can be performed, but this is performed in units of media and it is not possible to prohibit overwriting of only some important data.

An object of the present invention is to provide an optical disc capable of selecting a recording mode according to the importance of recorded information, a method of manufacturing the same, and an information recording method. .

[0005]

An optical disk according to the present invention has a rewritable recording area (hereinafter, referred to as a RAM area) in which recorded information can be rewritten, and a write-once recording area (hereinafter, referred to as WO) in which information can be recorded only once. (Referred to as an area).

In a specific aspect of the present invention, a read-only area (hereinafter, referred to as a ROM area) for only reproducing recorded information may be further provided.

According to the information recording method of the present invention, when information is recorded on an optical disk having a RAM area in which recorded information can be rewritten and a WO area in which information can be recorded only once, the information is updated and recorded in the RAM area. The overwritten information is recorded in the WO area as overwrite prohibition information based on a predetermined command.

Further, in the method of manufacturing an optical disk according to the present invention, there is provided a first masking step of covering a region other than the first region of the substrate of the optical disk with a mask material, and forming an optical disk on the substrate masked in this step. A step of forming an alloy layer made of a magnetic material or a phase change material, a first masking removing step of removing the mask material from the substrate on which the alloy layer is formed, and a second masking step different from the first region. A second masking step of covering a region other than the region with a mask material, a step of forming a dye layer that causes a thermal change on the substrate masked in this step, and a step of forming the mask from the substrate on which the dye layer is formed. A second masking removing step of removing a material, wherein the alloy layer is formed in the first region;
Forming a reflective layer on the substrate on which the dye layer has been formed in the region (1).

According to the optical disk of the present invention, the RA
Since the M area and the WO area are provided, data processing, new addition, update, and the like are performed in the RAM area, and information of high importance, which has been processed and has no change, can be recorded in the WO area. Only important data can be prohibited from being overwritten while leaving the degree of freedom of rewriting. For this reason, the range of the information recording operation is greatly expanded.

If a ROM area for reproducing recorded information is further provided, a predetermined program is recorded in the ROM area, data input according to the program is processed in the RAM area, and the processing result is stored in a WO. A wider range of usage, such as recording in an area, becomes possible.

The RAM area can be formed by coating an alloy layer made of a magneto-optical material or a phase change material, and the WO area can be formed by coating a dye layer which undergoes a thermal change by a light beam. it can. Therefore, by performing masking in accordance with these regions and selectively forming the alloy layer and the dye layer, the optical disk of the present invention can be produced.

[0012]

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an optical disc according to an embodiment of the present invention. The optical disc 1 has a read-only memory (ROM) area 2, a random-access memory (RAM) area 3 in which recorded information can be rewritten, and a WO (Write Once) in which information can be written only once from the inner circumference to the outer circumference. An area 4 is provided.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line AA in FIG. The optical disc 1 has lands 1 at intervals of, for example, 1.6 μm.
RA and a groove 13 (and further pits in the ROM area 2) are formed on a transparent substrate 11 made of polycarbonate.
In the M region 3, for example, a magneto-optical material such as GdTbCuFe, GdCuFe, or GeSbTe, AgInSbTe
Forming an alloy layer 14 made of a phase change material such as
In the O region 4, for example, a dye layer 15 such as a cyanine dye, a phthalo dye, or a diazo dye is formed.
An aluminum reflective film 16 including the OM region 2 is formed, and the whole is covered with a protective layer 17 of resin or the like.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a manufacturing process of such an optical disc 1, and FIG. First, the substrate 11 on which the lands 12 and the grooves 13 (further pits in the ROM area 2) are formed (FIG. 3).
(A), S1 in FIG. 4). Next, the ROM area 2 and the WO area 4 other than the RAM area 3 on the substrate 11 are masked with a mask material 18 such as a film (FIG. 3B, S2 in FIG. 4). An alloy layer 14 is formed thereon by sputtering or vapor deposition (FIG. 3C, S3 in FIG. 4). The mask material 18 is removed (FIG. 3D, S in FIG. 4).
4). Next, the ROM area 2 and the RAM area 3 other than the WO area 4 of the substrate 11 are masked with a mask material 19 such as a film (FIG. 3E, S5 in FIG. 4). Dye is applied thereon by spin coating or the like to form a dye layer 15 (FIG. 3 (f), S6 in FIG. 4). The mask material 19 is removed (FIG. 3 (g), S in FIG. 4).
7). A reflective film 16 is formed thereon by sputtering or vapor deposition (FIG. 3 (h), S8 in FIG. 4). Finally, the protective layer 17 is applied to the whole to complete the optical disc 1 (FIG. 3 (i), S9 in FIG. 4).

Next, the optical disk 1 thus configured
Will be described. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an optical disk drive device applicable to the optical disk 1. The optical disc 1 is rotated by a spindle motor 21 at a constant linear velocity, for example. At a position facing the recording surface of the optical disk 1, an optical pickup 22 as a light beam irradiation unit and a light detection unit is arranged. The drive of the optical pickup 22 is controlled by the feed motor 23 in the radial direction of the optical disc 1.

At the time of reproduction, a read signal (RF signal) from the optical pickup 22 is transmitted to an RF (high frequency) amplifier 2.
4 and amplified by EFM / CIRC (Cross Interleaved).
Reed-Solomon Code) is supplied to the encoder / decoder 25. The encoder / decoder 25 converts the read signal into E
FM demodulation and CIRC decoding are performed, and data is stored in the buffer memory 2 under the control of the memory controller 26.
7, and the control information is supplied to the system controller 28. The data stored in the buffer memory 27 is sequentially read from the buffer memory 27 under the control of the memory controller 26 and output to a host system (not shown). The servo control unit 29 controls the focus and tracking of the optical pickup 22 based on the output of the RF amplifier 24, and controls the spindle motor 21 and the feed motor 23 according to instructions from the system controller 28.

On the other hand, during recording, the buffer memory 2
7 to be recorded is read out via a memory controller 26, and is subjected to CIRC encoding and EFM modulation by an EFM / CIRC encoder / decoder 25 to become a recording signal. Supplied to The optical pickup 22 modulates a light beam by a recording signal to form recording pits on the optical disc 1. In the RAM area 3 and the WO area 4 of the optical disk 1, wobbles are formed in the grooves 13. The address decoder 30 generates a recording address of the optical disk 1 based on a signal obtained by reading the wobbles by the optical pickup 22. , And supplies the address information to the encoder / decoder 25.

FIG. 6 shows an example of recording / reproducing the optical disc 1 according to the present invention using the optical disc drive device configured as described above. FIG. 6A shows an example in which the final processed data is recorded in the WO area 4. For example, floppy disks and many other recording media can be protected from overwriting. However, this measure is performed for the entire medium, and cannot respond to a request to overwrite only a part of the data. In order to perform overwriting, it is necessary to remove protection. At this time, a mistake may occur in which the user mistakenly overwrites necessary data with other data. Therefore, by using the RAM area 3 as a draft area and the WO area 4 as a clear copy area, such an error is prevented from occurring.

That is, a data file or the like used by the user is recorded in the ROM area 2, and a necessary data file is read from this area (S11). Next, the data is processed or new data is added to the data file (S12), and the resulting processed data is overwritten and recorded in the RAM area 3 (S13). Since the RAM area 3 can be rewritten many times, the user can rewrite the data until the user is satisfied. When the processing is completed (S14),
The final processing data is recorded in the WO area 4 (S15). The data once recorded in the WO area 4 is in the same state as when overwriting protection has been applied. As described above, only important data can be overwritten with protection, so that usability is improved.

FIG. 6B shows an example in which the best data in the game is recorded in the WO area 4. There are various types of games, but in the case of a role-playing game, there are times when it is desired to save information on the stage that has been cleared and information required for clearing. In addition, in the case of a shooting game, the score of each stage is important information in addition to the information of the stage that has been cleared, and therefore, it is desirable to save the information. For game users, there is a demand to save the highest score and the most advanced information as the best clear result, to update the score by playing the game separately from them, or to go to a further stage. However, the score cannot always be updated, so sometimes you may want to move on from the best data. In addition, recent games are large in scale, and there are many pieces of intermediate information such as scores, skills, and invincible items obtained during the game.

Therefore, the best data is recorded in the WO area 4 and the current progress data is updated in the RAM area 3. Then, at the start of the game, the ROM area 2, the RAM area 3, and the WO area 4 are read (S2
1) Selection is made whether to start anew, start a game using data in the RAM area 3, or start a game using data in the WO area 4 (S22). Data is read based on the selection result, and the game is executed (S23). Data during the game progress is sequentially recorded in the RAM area 3 (S24). When the best data is obtained (S25), the data is moved to the WO area 4 (S26). If the WO area 4 is selected in the selection step S22, the game can be started from the state of the best score.

As described above, according to the present invention, the usability of the optical disk is remarkably improved. In the present invention, the presence of the ROM area 2 is not essential, and the effect of the present invention can be obtained even with an optical disk having only the RAM area 3 and the WO area 4.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since a RAM area and a WO area are provided, there is a recording method in which data is processed, newly added, updated, and the like are performed in the RAM area, and high-priority information that has been processed and has no change is recorded in the WO area. Thus, only important data can be prohibited from being overwritten while leaving the degree of freedom of rewriting, and the effect of greatly expanding the range of information recording operation can be achieved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an optical disc according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line AA of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a view for explaining a manufacturing process of the optical disc.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the manufacturing process.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an optical disk drive device to which the optical disk is applied.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a specific example of a recording / reproducing method for the optical disc.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... optical disk, 2 ... ROM area, 3 ... RAM area, 4
.. WO area, 11 substrate, 14 alloy layer, 15 dye layer, 16 reflective film, 17 protective layer, 21 spindle motor, 22 optical pickup, 23 feed motor, 24
... RF amplifier, 25 ... EFM / CIRC encoder / decoder, 26 ... memory controller, 27 ... buffer memory, 28 ... system controller, 29 ... servo control unit, 30 ... address decoder.

Claims (4)

[Claims] An optical disc comprising: a rewritable recording area in which recording information can be rewritten; and an additional recording area in which information can be recorded only once. 2. The optical disc according to claim 1, further comprising a read-only area for only reproducing recorded information. 3. When information is recorded on an optical disk having a rewritable area in which record information can be rewritten and an additional recording area in which information can be recorded only once, information updated and recorded in the rewritable area is An information recording method, wherein the information is recorded as overwrite prohibition information in the additional recording area based on a predetermined command. 4. A first masking step of covering a region other than the first region of the substrate of the optical disk with a mask material, and an alloy layer made of a magneto-optical material or a phase-change material on the substrate masked in this step. A first masking removing step of removing the mask material from the substrate on which the alloy layer is formed; and a step of covering a region other than a second region different from the first region with the mask material. (2) a step of forming a dye layer causing a thermal change on the substrate masked in this step; and a second masking removing step of removing the mask material from the substrate on which the dye layer is formed. And a step of forming a reflective layer on a substrate on which the alloy layer is formed in the first region and the dye layer is formed in the second region. Method.