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Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Micheal Chia who wrote (1230)	11/13/1997 10:50:00 PM
From: Gus	Respond to of 17679

Responses A) Michael: The current move from TFI to MR is considered revolutionary while the future move from MR to GMR is considered evolutionary. Remember, as one goes from MR to GMR to CMR, KM can be used differently. AXC believes that at lower densities, KM can be optimized to boost areal density at nominal cost. At higher densities, AXC believes that KM can be used to reduce the instability of data caused by the thermal decay of the magnetic bits, which become increasingly smaller as one goes up the density scale. Here's an excellent way to describe the kind of hurdles facing AXC as it tries to commercialize KM. Needless to say, the risks are real. "The paths of product development for magnetic disk drives are littered with thousands of technically great ideas whose only sins are being ahead of their time. With hindsight, it is clear that if one wishes the magnetic storage industry, or any industry, for that matter, to accept and to embrace any proposed changes in the design paradigm, one must not only solve the fundamental technical problems but must also provide a gradual and logical path such that the industry can proceed one technology step at a time. [Read Bramson's letter again re: focus on adapting KM to existing components] That is, as an industry, it will never allow itself to fly a new engine with an entirely new air-frame...... Our self-imposed constraint is that these proposed silicon devices must be a one-to-one replacement to its conventional equivalent, requiring no or at least <minimal changes in the drive design. computer.org B) Steve: Do we know that Axc is actively shopping its KM technology to all the key companies you refer to in your recent posts? Yes. RDRT - see 1996 10Qs for reference to unidentified manufacturer of tripad proximity inductive heads. RDRT invented tripad inductive heads. Also, note again that Samsung agreement called for AXC to show that KM works with heads from different manufacturers. Assumption: IBM, RDRT and whoever else RDRT uses. IBM: 1) see 1996 10Qs. IBM submitted sample keepered platters 2) IBM is Samsung's primary head supplier for 1.6 GB/platter MR heads and probably IBM's higher density heads down the road using conventional MR. 3) IBM and Ampex presentation on KM and Perpendicular Recording which may be necessary to go beyond 10 Gbits/in2. I have seen indications that WDC, HMTT, STMD, APM, RDRT, SEG, IBM, Maxtor, and Samsung have done some work on KM. The reasonable assumption to make is that AXC is actively pitching KM. Gus