Developed jointly with Nichia of Japan, the new laser unit is just 3mm thick and should help manufacturers miniaturise the hardware in their Blu-ray drives. Sony says it imagines the device ending up in 9.5mm laptop drives sometime this year.

Cost savings come from a simpler manufacturing process that will yield dividends in mass production, while other features include the ability to handle dual-layer BDs and disks with organic dye in the recording layers. Organic disks can be churned out from existing DVD production lines, so it's a win-win situation here.