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 : Seagate Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raptech who wrote (5611)	9/10/1998 10:40:00 AM
From: William Epstein	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7841

Raptech; Thank you again for the observation. That puts the IBM news in context. William Epstein

To: Raptech who wrote (5611)	9/10/1998 7:54:00 PM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 7841

Raptech, IBM's intent on getting into the specialized sector of very small form factor is interesting. This is a technology that has had many hurdles from a variety of challenges. You are very right to mention shock and vibration as one of them. Many have tried the very small form factor before. At present there is only one company making anything smaller then the 2.5 inch drive. The company is Callhuna, a Scottish firm spun off by former Rodime designers. They make a 1.8 inch drive. It is a market segment that never quite took off before, though attempted by lofty companies like H-P with their "Kitthawk" drive and less lofty companies like Integral Peripherals who is now officially bankrupt. Other companies had designs that never saw release. I have always thought these drives were before their time inasmuch as the applications did not exist for very small devices. Yes, they did allow lower weight in laptops, but the budget loss in data capacity was high compared to 2.5 inch drives. Now with areal densities reaching much higher then the companies mentioned above had achieved, the time may be right. Especially coupling that with the forecasted rise in Windows CE applications, the growth in palm tops, and the new applications emerging in the consumer product sectors, such as digital cameras. One technical hurdle, as noted, is the head disk interface. IBM has re-engineered an old idea which eliminates any contact between head & media in a normally operated disk drive. From their Almaden technical web page here is a direct quote: <<To achieve ever-increasing densities, the laws of magnetic recording physics require ever decreasing head-to-disk spacing, which can be achieved only with a virtually perfect, ultra-smooth disk. Previously, most drives operated in a CSS (contact stop-start) mode, in which heads come to rest on the disk surface when the drive is turned off. During start-up, the heads could slide, in contact, over the disk surface until the disks are spinning sufficiently fast. In order to prevent adhension of the heads to a smooth disk surface which could affect drive spin-up, disk surfaces are textured (roughened in a precision process). Texturing is performed either uniformly over the entire disk surface, or locally in a specific zone at the inner diameter of the disk dedicated for starting and stopping. While these techniques have been successful in the past, today's higher areal density designs require a level of disk surface perfection beyond the texturing need to support CSS operation. >> You may notice that I mention a "normally operated disk drive". That is to say that IBM's load/unload feature that prevents head-to-disk contact during those operations, do nothing to prevent damage if a drive is dropped during a read/write operation. Nevertheless, there seems to be quite a bit of new interest in the very small form factor and IBM seems to have timed their product announcement well IMO. Best, Stitch