© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company

Progress and Outlook of HDD

Technology

Xiaodong (Carl) Che and Roger Wood

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company 2

Preamplifier

Write-driver

Suspensions

Load/Unload

Ramps

In-hub

spindle motor

& fluid bearing

Disk with

Perpendicular

Recording

Medium

Actuator

Arm-stack

Voice-Coil

Motor

Aluminum base-casting

Connector

(electronics card not shown) (cover not shown)

HDD Structure & Components

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company 3

HDD History

1960 Servers &

Mainframes

1980-89 Desktop PCs

Notebook PCs

External HD

DVRs

Digital Audio

Gaming

Digital Photos / Cams

Mobile Phones

Surveillance

HDTVs

Cloud storage

Social media

1990-99 2000-09 2010-19 Beyond…

2020

The Nobel Price in Physics, 2007

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company 4

Transformation of HDD

1975

20 GigaBytes

$ 2-4 Million

One

TeraByte

$50

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company

Areal Density Historical Trend

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Are

al

Den

sit

y (

Gb

/in

2)

Year product available (Mobile 5400 RPM)

Hitachi/HGST

IBM

Quantum/Seagate

Toshiba

Fujitsu

Samsung

AFC Media

PMR

TFC

MR head

thin film media

PRML channel

GMR heads

MEPRML channel

SMR

MAMR

TAR

BPR

TDMR

60% CGR

90% CGR 30% CGR

45% CGR

20~35% CGR

CPP-GMR

Head TMR

Head

LDPC

channel

4k sector

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company 6

Time

Longitudinal Magnetic

Recording (LMR)

1 Tb/in2

10 Tb/in2

Perpendicular Magnetic

Recording (PMR)

Bit Patterned Magnetic Recording (BPMR)

Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR)

Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR)

Shingled Write Recording (SWR)

150 Gb/in2

5 Tb/in2

Shingled Write Recording (SWR)

Superpara-magnetic limit

Energy Assisted Recording probably on BPM

Shingled Write & Two Dimensional Magnetic Recording (TDMR)

100 Tb/in2

Are

al

Den

sit

y

Future Technology Roadmap

Y. Shiroishi, Intermag 2009, FA-01

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company

7

HDD Three Level Technology Enablers

Magnetic Comp.

Elec. systems

Platforms

• Scaling

• HAMR

• MAMR

• BPM/HAMR

• etc…

• adv. LDPC

• SMR

• TDMR

• 4K/Beyond

• etc…

• Multi. Disks

• Thin Z-height

• Helium filled

• DSA

• Hybrid

• Cold Storage

• etc…

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company

Key Technology Challenges for HDD

Grow capacity $/GB, GB/Watt, GB/sq ft. etc.

• Areal density – disruptive technologies are coming soon

• Platter count

Reduce unit cost & increase reliability

Increase performance & functionality (e.g., security, power,

acoustics)

New form factors and applications

– Smart devices – ‘thin and light’, instant-on

– Cloud – bigger, slower, $/GB

© 2012 HGST, a Western Digital company

9

Thanks!