Editor's Page

Hard-drive heroics

As the dismal downturn affecting most semiconductor manufacturers and their suppliers takes on the dimensions of Greek tragedy, another part of the advanced microelectronics sector sees the makings of a happy ending. Although exhibit space grew at the recent Diskcon 98 trade show in San Jose, the halls were not overflowing with attendees, a sign of continued belt-tightening. The light traffic aside, many exhibitors believe business may finally be picking up.

In a time when overcapacity ranks with the Asian flu as a cause of economic woes, it was encouraging to hear a manager from a chipmaker which supplies the data storage industry worry out loud whether his company would be able to deal with its orders in the next quarter, given the surge of business in the last month or so. A spokesperson from one equipment maker exhibiting new polishers and a next-generation disk-cleaning tool said they had a "terrific" show. Other suppliers to the drive side said they thought the industry would see an upturn by the end of this year, not the usual "expect another year of doom and gloom" heard in most semiconductor circles. With varying degrees of optimism, forecasts from IDC, Disk/Trend, and Dataquest all call for growth in drive unit shipments and revenues this year and next.

The disk-drive industry and its suppliers are paying closer attention than ever to defect reduction, microcontamination control, and yield enhancement. Young Sohn of Quantum said at the IDEMA press conference that he has seen "a concerted effort by the supply chain to work on [controlling] contamination, especially since "end-customer feedback" to his company has stressed "reliability of the drives," which is tied to reducing contamination-induced defects. IDEMA president Larry Eischen noted that "more and more of our members are asking for contamination standards." Dataquest analyst John Monroe said "lowering manufacturing costs and improving yields" are "real challenges" for the industry, a point underscored by HMT's Ronald Schauer, who talked about to his company's process engineering group and its efforts to improve "internal yields and spend equal amounts of time in customer plants."

The Disk Drive Pavilion sponsored by IDEMA showcased the latest drives from eight leading manufacturers. As the miniexhibit confirmed, miniaturization advances in the disk industry have developed on a parallel track to the phenomenon of the ever-shrinking chip. IBM's just-released 1-inch, 340-Mb microdrive, touted as the "world's smallest, lightest hard disk drive," garnered many admiring glances. Nearby, an engineer from Big Blue busily snapped digi-photos and scribbled notes about Hitachi's new 31/2-inch, 9.2-Gb drive, proving that trade shows provide a neutral forum for checking out the competition.

Tom Cheyney
Editor

tom.cheyney@cancom.com

MICRO's yearlong Mapping the Roadmap series concludes this month, with an article on defect prevention and elimination. I'd like to thank David Jensen, Sematech's program manager for defect reduction technology, for his hard work and perseverance in coordinating the series, as well as the many contributing coauthors who helped make the articles required reading in the industry. Work is under way on the next edition of the SIA roadmap, which is scheduled for release late next year. Watch upcoming issues for progress reports on the document.

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