Gentlemen, gentlemen;
Will I be downloading images of Stitch, sitting in his KL backyard, smoking a cigar and explaining the drive business? - - - Robert
I can see it now. Stitch, 50 pounds overweight, sitting in his string bikini and sunglasses by the pool, martini in hand, being fanned by a couple of topless, young, Asian girls explaining how he made a fortune by buying disk drive stocks while nobody wanted them. Ah! The good life!! - - - Z
As Z pointed out, 2 to 4 years from now we may be looking at pictures of Stitch smoking is cigar but is that something we want to store? It probably depends on the Asian ladies.<g> - - - Mark
PS I think Stitch is such a charming character, I'm sure I'd have to buy a special hard drive just for him regardless of the girls in attendance or heaven forbid, g-strings. - - - Mark
Now, what's that you were saying about Stitch's hard drive and Asian girls? - - - Z
Really Z. At least you left the cigar out of this picture. - - - Mark
It's good to see you back, but seeing you wearing a Speedo soaking up that South Pacific sun and puffing on a stogie is a sight I might want to do without. - - - La Traguhs
Yogi, that sure wasn't a picture of Stitch. - - - Gottfried
Yeah, I come back from a 3 day hike in the mountains to references to Stitch in a "g" string. The horror. - - - Yogi
Well Yogi, and other nefarious gents, invoking Colonel Kurtz comes close to my reaction as well. All except the cigar and girls part. That I can dig!
From the "string" of posts above, may I surmise we have ridden this horse to, at least submission, if not death? Perhaps you will allow me to end it this way:
A fat man with cigar, in a “G”?
Who thunk this bizarre imagery?
get disk drives back in your heads
I am hoping this subject is dead,
(cept' the cigar and the girls stay with me.)
On to topical stuff<G>.
Yogi; you were quite right to link IBM's thoughts on the subject of low fly height. They have led the charge here and were really the first to deploy glass substrates in a commercially succesful disk drive though others tried before them. In fact IBM is the first to flag for me the importance of track pitch for the near future of continued increases in areal density. Low fly height, very narrow read gaps, absolute control of row bow, absolute control of air bearing surfaces, new methods of servo writing, ultra smooth recording surfaces, immaculate operating ambience, and a host of other challenges will keep our boys busy for a while.
Some of the things I think of in contemplating these future density gains:
We will need new ways of measuring the domains involved. For example, today's flying height testers are challenged below a microinch due to the n&k value of the material. A way oversimple explanation of N&K is that the change in reflectance of certain materials can, at these heights, perceptibly change the values discerned by the tester. Zygo is a company with a novel way of dealing with this and may be the only company with an ability to truly measure down to zero (contact). We will need new ways to measure surface metrology. We are approaching realms that require AFM. Again Zygo, in concert with IBM has a product as does Veeco by virtue of an acquisition they did last year. The trick is not necessarily the base technology which has existed but in applying the technology to the geometries and ease of use required by the data storage business. These guys have done, and are doing, that. Another measurement technology again involves n&k values. The measurement of the thickness of these ultra-thin films is going to be a challenge. There is a well known technology for measurement of thin film thicknesses by using a potentiometer. But that generally runs out of gas at 50 angstroms. A start up in San Jose called n&k Technologies has come up with a better solution. Sorry, it isn't investable yet but maybe some day. Their technology is important to the semiconductor and flat panel industries as well. Finally, there is general metrology that must be deployed for all kinds of measurements. Flatness and surface characteristics of media, surface characterization of heads, pole tip recession, gap widths, gap lengths, pitch & roll of HGAs and HSAs, defects (in x, y , and z dimensions), contamination detection, etc etc, all become more difficult.
Another thing I think about when contemplating the direction things are going is automation. There are three forces in play that weigh for the importance of automating many steps previously performed by operators. First and perhaps foremost is cost. Cost is king. Technology plays a close second, but you gotta be competitive in your price. (This assumes that quality and time to market are sine qua non). Seagate has identified that levels of automation will be critical to achieving comeptitive pricing even though it tends to weigh against time to market ramps. The second compelling reason for automation is simply the increased need for cleanliness. People are the biggest source for contaminants that can kill your process. Automation reduces reliance on people in your process and therefore reduces sources for that contamination. Finally, the parts are getting to small, even for delicate Asian hands, to handle. For example, today, merging a head stack with a disk stack absolutely requires special tooling and many companies have automated the process. Clearances are too tight for reliable human assembly. The companies that seem furthest along in automation are Fujitsu and Hitachi. In fact, Hitachi's plant in the Philippines is basically a “lights out” operation. Which raises a good point. The Japanese companies long resisted the move to SE Asia which gave U.S. companies many years of cost advantages. Instead, the Japanese kept their processes close to the design centers and focused on automation instead. Partnering with companies like Seiko who had developed very high levels of automation for watch making, and funding large in-house automation programs early, may have resulted in a significant advantage for the Japanese firms now that things weigh in favor of using more robotics.
Now, where the hell did I leave my suntan oil?
Best,
Stitch
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