Big Data and Cloud Storage

--- A Recording Head Perspective

Herbert Lin
VP, Heads R&D, Western Digital

®
 Ubiquitous Data Needs --- A Personal Reflection

Last week while vacationing in
Hawaii, we stayed in an off the
grid tree house in the middle of
tropical forest

Access by dirt road

Solar power

Rain water collection

Recycled material + tree branches

No Phone/Cable/Internet
The owner plans to
increase his online
storage due to his
expanded business

WD Confidential
Fun Facts About Heads

Small

A 6” wafer has ~ 50,000 Devices

A slider weights ~ 0.6 mg

Critical dimensions smaller than semi-conductor

Critical

Provide write and read function

Complicated

> 60 layer of Masks

> 800 critical wafer process steps

Vulnerable

~ 60 miles/hour

~ 2 nm of clearance

Equivalent to flying from San Francisco to New
York (>4000km) at a height of ~30 mm

No birds in the air, no trees on the ground, no
waves over any water, no houses, no mountains
®

WD Confidential
Head --- a Significant Driver for Areal Density
Perpendicular 40% CGR
6 Areal Density Perspective Recording PR Projection
10
1E+6

5
10
1E+5
TuMR Heads
Areal Density Megabits/in2

4 GMR Heads AFC Media

1E+4
10
100% CGR
10 3
1E+3
AMR Head 60% CGR
2
10
1E+2 200 Million X
25% CGR Increase
Thin Film Head PRML Channels
10
1E+1

1E+0
1 HDD
Thin Film Media
Products
-1 Industry
10
1E-1 Lab Demos

-2
10
1E-2
(First Hard Disk Drive)
-3
10
1E-3
Production Year
60 70 80 90 100
2000 110
10 ®
Page
4
WD Confidential 4
Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR)

Next major technology for AD extendibility

with minimal system impacts.

Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording uses
continuous recording media which has
good thermal stability at room
temperature

To record on this type of media we must

first heat the media until it becomes
writeable with conventional recording
fields

Other forms of energy assist are ®

also being explored
WD Confidential
Critical Dimension Trend

Challenges: HDD is on a steeper slope for CD (critical dimension) shrinkage

Opportunities: Introduction of new cost effective equipment for storage industry
®

WD Confidential
Wafer Mask Layer Increases

AD growth requirements continuously drive

wafer process complexity on the same
magnitude as semiconductor industry

WD Confidential
Development Cycle and Capital Investment

• Long Cycle time AD Growth >30%

• Code ---- Days HAMR needs to launch
• Disk ---- Weeks
• Head --- Months
• High CapEx

AD Growth Slows
 More heads/disks per HDD
 More Capex $$

WD Confidential
Summary

Storage demand is ubiquitous

Off-the-grid does not equate off-the-cloud

Magnetic head technology has been and will continue to
be a key driver to sustained growth

Next technology is Heat (Energy) assisted

Leading edge process complexity will continue to be a
trademark of head development

Critical talent is more important than ever

Development cycle time and intensive capital investment
require critical business decision-making

WD Confidential
Thank You