【新聞】Maxtor：最新垂直讀寫技術將使單碟容量更大

In an attempt to solve an important problem of future storage products, Maxtors fully-owned subsidiary MMC Technology has developed and demonstrated its new perpendicular recording medium (PMR) disk manufacturing process which delivers production costs similar to todays 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 areal-density possible at affordable costs.


MMC is able to leverage the same equipment used to produce todays 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 400nm to as thin as 100nm, does not require extra sputtering machines and can be produced at the same throughput as LMR. MMCs existing equipment can also accommodate the increased complexity associated with future PMR media that requires additional metallic layers.

MMC media is capable of up to a 175GB/platter density using advanced developmental PMR heads. This achievement is a result of decreasing grain sizes from todays LMR grains at 8nm to an average of 6nm in diameter.

In addition, the MMC team reduced the recording layer-to-SUL spacing, resulting in continued improvements in signal to noise ratio and bit error rates. By fabricating narrow grain size distributions and large negative nucleation fields, MMC's PMR media is magnetically stable exhibiting non-detectable thermal decay.

First HDDs using perpendicular recording medium are projected to emerge in the market in 2005.


為了解決在儲存資料方面的技術難題，Maxtor日前公布了其自主開發的MMC技術，其中最新採用的垂直讀寫技術將為下一代磁碟儲存裝置所採用，而成本方面也將和目前採用的縱向讀寫技術相差無幾。

MMC技術能夠使當前的設備在製造最新的磁性材料層的時候比目前所使用的材料層僅增加小部分成本，但是卻能夠將目前採用的軟質底層磁性材料層從目前的400nm的厚度降低到100nm，而且能夠保持目前的生產量。另外MMC技術將能夠滿足將來增加額外的金屬塗層的要求。

採用MMC技術的碟片在使用PMR磁頭的時候單碟容量將能夠達到175GB，這是由於其中採用了更小的磁性材料顆粒的原因，將來磁性材料的顆粒直徑將從目前LMR技術的8nm繼續降低到平均6nm以下。

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