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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (2510)	2/20/1998 8:22:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9256

Mark, <<It would seem to me that the reason for going to China is cheap labor. Is the actual production of heads that labor intensive?>> Very. The entire HGA (HEAD GIMBAL ASSEMBLY) is done by manual labor in a clean room. This includes bonding the SLIDER to the pads on the flexure, and wiring the flex circuit. After that process there is the HSA (HEAD STACK ASSY) which requires a manual assembly of the e-blocks HGAs, and an actuator into a sub assembly. It is quite a process, including the vertical aligning of the heads in the stack assy. It is very delicate work and the companies guard there best assemblers jealously. Sliders are what Read-Rite makes in California for shipment to SEA. Sliders are made after the WAFER is sliced and diced into the little bitty sliders. So, in summary , head manufacturing consist of Wafer Fab, Slider fab, HGA assy, and then HSA assy (yes, I know these latter two terms seem redundant but it is the terminology used). Many many steps, all very critical, most "high tech". And all of it striving to get a decent yield at final. Quite an amazing thing IMO. best, Stitch

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (2510)	2/20/1998 9:21:00 PM
From: Mark Adams	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9256

Per RDRT's 10Q, they sold appx 22million heads/Qtr. Compare this with IBM's proud claim to 9million in the last 5 months, and you see they've captured about 25%/Qtr of RDRT sales- not to mean that RDRT has lost any sales though. I seem to remember reading a similar release not so long ago from IBM. While they do appear out for blood, they haven't captured market leadership yet, and seem bent on driving their competitors stocks down via press releases at opportune moments. (Might I be so bold as to point out today's options expiration?) The GMR had a similar impact.