Maxtor validate cost efficient perpendicular recording

Maxtor Corporation have announced that their wholly owned subsidiary, MMC Technology Inc., have demonstrated their new perpendicular recording medium (PMR) disk manufacturing process which delivers production costs similar to today’s longitudinal recording media.
MMC showcased a single-pass media production process for perpendicular medium using existing manufacturing equipment, making the transition to the next era of a real density possible at affordable costs.
MMC is able to leverage the same equipment used to produce today’s longitudinal media (LMR) with only an incremental cost of material due to the development of its new thick soft underlayer (SUL) magnetic material structure. This structure reduces the SUL required for efficient writing from 400 nm to as thin as 100 nm, does not require extra sputtering machines and can be produced at the same throughput as LMR. MMC’s existing equipment can also accommodate the increased complexity associated with future PMR media that requires additional metallic layers.
“The formula for perpendicular recording success from a disk point of view depends as much on the cost of production as it does on the recording density capability,” said Dr. Ken Johnson, vice president of research and development at MMC Technology. “We’ve made achievements in reducing production costs by using existing capital equipment and in improving media performance through technological innovations.”
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