Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: jas singh MD who wrote (1256)	11/18/1997 8:14:00 PM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17679

IBM, Toshiba first to move to giant MR heads By Terry Costlow and Yoshiko Hara SAN JOSE, Calif. -- IBM Storage Systems Division and Toshiba Corp. *upped the ante for the disk-drive industry* last week when they rolled out the first disk drives that use giant magnetoresistive heads. The companies are making their shift before the rest of the drive industry has completed its transition to MR heads, thus underscoring the rapid pace of advancements in drive technology...... .....The adoption of the GMR technology indicates rapid change in the drive industry. The fundamental giant MR effect was only discovered by French researchers in 1989. By contrast, Control Data Corp. was predicting that it was ready to ship high volumes of MR heads before it was acquired by Seagate Technology Inc. in 1989, and Seagate didn't unveil its first drive with an MR head until 1995. Even after head designers overcame several problems, the switch from inductive thin-film heads to MR heads came much slower than most observers had expected. Roughly half of the drives shipped this year will have thin-film heads, according to analysts. The transition will proceed more easily once drive makers can get MR heads, IBM executives said. "MR usage came in two steps: Head manufacturers made them; then it took 18 months to two years for the industry to build an infrastructure of chips and other technologies so they could be implemented," Scranton said. "We believe that GMR will integrate nicely into the drive infrastructure; you can use similar pre-amps and read channel chips. It's not quite as revolutionary in terms of impact on the infrastructure as MR heads were." The change in head technology should keep disk-drive capacity on the same 60 percent per year increase that the industry has seen for several years. IBM predicts that that rate will continue at least until 2001, when 10 Gbits/square inch will be state of the art. IBM plans to ship its GMR drives next month, and predicts that PC makers will announce products that include them early next year. Analysts don't expect GMR production to make much of an impact for more than a year. Gradual ramp-up "I don't really see any GMR volumes until 1999," said Dennis Waid, president of Peripheral Research (Santa Barbara, Calif.). "When head producers go into GMR, they will need new sputtering equipment, so they aren't going to move into production all that quickly." IBM will sell GMR heads externally, but those sales aren't expected to be substantial for some time. IBM began selling heads externally only this year. Waid predicted it will sell about 9 million heads externally from a total 1997 roduction figure of 130 million, though that total should grow next year, he added. Scranton noted that some outside drive makers have received evaluation versions of the GMR heads. While other firms may move slowly, IBM is fairly bullish about switching over to GMR technology. "We will probably transition our entire production capability to GMR over the next few years," Scranton said. techweb.cmp.com