The potential of bit patterned media in shingled recording

Shingled recording on continuous and bit patterned media (BPM) is compared. From a recording viewpoint, continuous media have the advantage due to the lack of a need to synchronise writing with dot position. For BPM the write windows at 4 Tbit/in² are only a couple of nm across, requiring extremely tight manufacturing tolerances. In readback, BPM have the higher SNR over a wide range of areal densities due to the absence of transition noise and erase bands. Significant increases in areal density could be achieved using BPM, provided dot uniformity could be maintained.