RETURN  
 

IBM "pixie dust" breakthrough quadruples disk drive density

  
 
IBM is using a few atoms of "pixie dust" to push back the data storage industry's
most formidable barrier.

The company is first to mass-produce computer hard disk drives using a
revolutionary new type of magnetic coating that is expected to quadruple the data
density of current hard disk drive products -- a level previously thought
impossible, but crucial to continue expanding the information-hungry Internet
economy.

For consumers, increased data density will hasten the transition in home
entertainment from passive analog technologies to interactive digital formats.

The key to IBM's new data storage breakthrough is a three-atom-thick layer of the
element ruthenium, a precious metal similar to platinum, sandwiched between
two magnetic layers. That only a few atoms could have such a dramatic impact
caused some IBM scientists to refer to the ruthenium layer informally as "pixie
dust."

Known technically as "antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media," the new
multilayer coating is expected to permit hard-disk drives to store 100 billion bits
(gigabits) of data per square inch of disk area by 2003. AFC media is being
shipped in IBM's Travelstar notebook hard disk drive products with data densities
up to 25.7 gigabits per square inch.

The increasing data densities enabled by AFC media are expected to simplify
processes for storing consumers' rapidly growing volumes of digital data (music,
photographs, presentations and video); accelerate an industry trend toward
smaller disk-drive form factors that consume less energy; and stimulate the
creation of new and more capable digital-media and data-intensive applications.

IBM plans to implement AFC media across all its disk drive product lines.

With AFC media, 100-gigabit data density could allow the following capacities
within two years:

Desktop drives -- 400 gigabytes (GB) or the information in 400,000 books.

Notebook drives -- 200 GB, equivalent to 42 DVDs or more than 300 CDs.

IBM's one-inch Microdrive -- 6 GB or 13 hours of MPEG-4 compressed
digital video (about eight complete movies) for handheld devices.