Again this year, disk drive manufacturers and their suppliers are in a race to deliver more data capacity in smaller spaces. These challenges come from the need for technologies that produce smaller bit sizes, lower magnetic head fly heights and smoother disk surfaces. TeraStor of San Jose has found a way to use a solid immersion lens on a flying head to tightly focus a laser beam past its diffraction limit. This produces an ultrasmall spot size for data recording, thus reducing the magnetic bit cell size and increasing the data density tenfold. Companies are also changing the way they manufacture disk drive components.
Process control no longer depends on the periodic examination of the final product.
Each part has to be inspected throughout the process. To illustrate, the capability of the magnetic recording heads to read and write signals onto hard disks determines the overall storage capacity. More than 15 thin-film layers compose the head, any of which could contain defects. Diskcon '97, the 11th annual exhibition for the data storage industry, focused on these issues. Between Sept. 22 and 26, a record-breaking 12,988 registrants attended the show, learning from the work of 419 exhibitors in 814 booths.