in the spirit of the "death of captive storage": <A> Read-Rite
Announces Its Fifth Data Storage World Record Extending Its
Breakthrough GMR Head Technology to 36 Gigabits Per Square Inch
biz.yahoo.com
MILPITAS, Calif., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT -
news) and HMT Technology Corporation (Nasdaq: HMTT - news) today announced
that they have achieved a fifth world record in magnetic data storage, demonstrating
giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads at an areal density of 36 billion bits per square
inch, or over 50 billion bytes per 3.5 inch platter. This new record represents a 40%
increase over the 26.5 billion bits per square inch record reported by the companies
only 3 months ago.
This record setting demonstration was accomplished using the high sensitivity
Read-Rite dual spin valve trimmed head, HMT advanced low noise, low glide and
thermally stable (< 0.5% per decade @ 543KFCI) media produced on NiP coated
aluminum substrates, and a trellis-coded noise predictive read channel from Marvell
Semiconductor Inc.
''One of the major accomplishments in this demonstration is our ability to achieve 36
billion bits per square inch using independent media and channel suppliers. We believe
our system level approach to advanced development is proving to be very successful
and is already providing a competitive advantage to our customers,'' said Dr. Subrata
Dey, Vice President of Advanced Technologies. ''As we announced in August, we
anticipate our innovative design will soon be extended to an areal density of over 40
billion bits per square inch.''
''Elements of this innovative GMR head technology have been integrated into today's
products such as those qualifications announced last week for Maxtor, Samsung,
Seagate, and Western Digital,'' said Alan S. Lowe, President and Chief Operating
Officer. ''In addition to providing a competitive advantage to these customers on their
existing products, this advanced technology is providing a benefit on the next generation
of products we are now delivering to our customers in connection with new program
qualifications.''
''This most recent HMT and Read-Rite milestone highlights the technology leadership
capability of both organizations and the availability of such technologically advanced
products in the merchant marketplace for our broad customer base. It also bodes well
for the ability of the disk drive industry to meet the challenges of more storage intensive
applications which require low cost solutions, very high volumetric capacities, and
lower component content in the drive itself,'' said Dr. Michael A. Russak, HMT's Vice
President of Research and Development and Chief Technical Officer.
''Marvell is pleased to have contributed to Read-Rite's ongoing success in achieving a
new areal density record with our 88C4200 PRML read channel'' said Dr. Alan
Armstrong, Vice President of Marketing for Marvell's mass storage division. ''The
88C4200, which incorporates our advanced mixed signal DSP technology and
trellis-coded noise predictive Viterbi detection, plays a key role in the success of
increasing areal densities,'' he added. ''As such, Marvell's commitment is to continue to
provide state-of-the-art read channel solutions to meet the industry's ever increasing
areal density requirements.''
The companies achieved the areal density of 36 million bits per square inch with linear
densities of over 511,000 bits per inch, track densities of over 70,400 tracks per inch
and data rates of 173 million bits per second (21.6 million bytes per second). The
on-track error rate was less than one error in over a billion bits read with over 22%
off-track capability. The heads, incorporating Read-Rite's innovative sensor and writer
structures, were manufactured at Read-Rite's production facility in Fremont, California
and utilized Read-Rite's advanced pico slider process.
HMT Technology Corporation independently designs, develops, manufactures and
markets high-performance thin-film disks. The company's products are used in
high-capacity hard disk drives for a variety of high-end applications including personal
computers, network servers and workstations, and in certain removable hard disk drive
applications. The disks currently shipped by HMT have coercivity levels of 2100 to
3300 Oersted, a measure of storage capacity, and glide heights of 1.2 to below 0.7
microinches. The company's shares are traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the
symbol HMTT. Additional information may be obtained by visiting HMT's website at
hmtt.com .
Marvell is comprised of Marvell Technology Group, Ltd. (MTGL), and its subsidiaries,
Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. (MSI), Marvell Asia PTE Ltd. (MAPL) and Marvell Japan
K.K. (MJKK). On behalf of MTGL, MSI develops proprietary Communications Mixed
Signal Processing (CMSP) technology for increased information capacity of mass
storage and data communications products. MAPL is headquartered in Singapore and is
responsible for Marvell's production and distribution operations. As used in this
release, the term Marvell refers to the entire group of Marvell companies. Marvell's
proprietary CMSP technology combines state-of-the-art custom digital signal
processing, high performance analog front-end interfaces, and complex communications
signal processing algorithms to allow technology customers to store and move digital
data on demand at extremely high data access rates. MSI is headquartered at 645
Almanor Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA, 94086; phone: 408-222-2500, fax: 408-328-0120;
website: marvell.com .
Read-Rite Corporation is one of the world's leading independent manufacturers of
magnetic recording heads, head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies
(HSAs) for disk drives and tape drives. The company is headquartered in Milpitas,
California and has operations in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. The
company's home page on the world wide web can be reached at
readrite.com . |
