by Anton Shilov
11/13/2002 | 09:11 PM
Seagate Technology today announced that its scientists have broken new ground in the field of magnetic data storage by demonstrating areal densities of over 100Gb/in2 (gigabits per square inch) using perpendicular recording technology. This “vertical” move has also enabled record performance data rates of up to 125MB/s. As the areal density growth rate of current longitudinal recording begins to slow, perpendicular recording appears best-positioned to keep pace with the world's growing data storage needs, with the potential for far higher density levels over time than what could otherwise be achieved.
According to Mark Kryder, Seagate senior vice president of Research, perpendicular recording is projected to achieve areal densities as high as 1Tb/in2 (terabit per square inch), roughly 20 times the density of today's state-of-the-art disc drive products. Perpendicular recording arranges the magnetic bits vertically on end on the surface of the disc, enabling the head to record and read more information per unit area. Perpendicular recording breaks new ground because today’s disc drives use traditional longitudinal recording that arranges the bits horizontally on the disc and therefore also require more surface area to store information.<%BANNER[article]%>
The company has also demonstrated the technology in their Concepts Lab in Minnesota.
Using industry-standard test procedures, Seagate has achieved a recording density in Perpendicular Recording of 100Gb/in2, at 700kbpi by 143ktpi and over 330Mb/s. This is the highest areal density reported to date for Perpendicular Recording systems and represents a significant advance in the state of the art over the previous record of 60Gb/in2.
The demonstration was carried out with a hardware channel under realistic and stringent drive conditions that incorporate full set of adjacent data tracks on multiple heads and media. Moreover, the heads used were fully integrated read/write heads specifically designed both for perpendicular recording and for use at this high track density. The media was double layered perpendicular media. Seagate's performance demonstration showed perpendicular recording functioning at a record data rate of 125 Mbytes per second with an areal density of nearly 60Gb/in2. This is the highest data rate and areal density combination ever reported for perpendicular recording, advancing the state of the art over the previous record of 125MB/s at only 13Gb/in2.
Both achievements continue the rapid increase in performance and capacity for perpendicular recording systems over the past 12 months and position Seagate as the leader in this technology. Perpendicular recording will ensure that continued progress in disc drive capacity and performance will be made well into the future. Seagate anticipates implementing perpendicular recording within its products perhaps as early as calendar year 2004.