Hey Stitch,
Re: GMR
1) Check out SEG's version of GMR.
...Giant MR, also called spin valve, provides much higher density than today's MR heads. Seagate is also working on an actuator using a tiny motor built into the head in order to fine-tune the positioning. "A key to making spin valve work is a microactuator," Menon said.
techweb.com
...Seagate (Scotts Valley, Calif.) will disclose to the press and analysts its R&D efforts centered on its GMR head, also called a spin-valve head. The company has developed a nickel-manganese material for its heads. Though no timetable is provided, the drive will have an areal density of about 4 Gbits/inch2. That's roughly double the areal density of the leading drive now on the market, according to analyst Bob Katzive of Disk/Trend Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.)...
techweb.com
2) IBM said basically the same thing earlier this year re: MR and GMR:
"...GMR is incredibly exciting in the long run. It is definitely the way to go," said Robert Scranton, director of recording heads at IBM's Storage Systems Division. "But we may have the luxury of being able to use either MR or GMR. When the first GMR drives come out in production, it's very likely that the highest areal density will be held by MR, not GMR."
Scranton predicted that IBM will unveil a drive with GMR heads next year.
techweb.com
3) On the Japanese side, Toshiba introduced its GMR laptop disk drive on the same day that IBM introduced its own version. In June, Toshiba had partnered with TDK/SAE manufacturing to bring the Toshiba GMR design to market more quickly. It now looks like Yamaha and some others are going to license the Toshiba GMR design also.
I'm curious to find out how fast Quantum (via MKE which is wholly-owned by Matsushita which also owns 34% of TDK/SAE) and the Japanese drive makers (Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi), presumably the main customers of the Japanese indie head makers, are going to move to GMR considering that IBM and SEG are going to bring 7200 rpm drives to the desktop using presumably more mature single and dual stripe or element MR heads with higher yields?
Gus
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