A*Star and Seiko Team Up For Super Small 5mm Tablet Hybrid HDD

Singapore, 14 December 2011 – With the announcement of its thin hybrid drive initiative, the A*STAR, Data Storage Institute (DSI) has further substantiated its move by sealing a crucial partnership with Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII).

SII and DSI has signed a research collaboration to develop pivot assembly for 2.5 inch, 5mm thickness, hybrid hard disk drive (HDD), signaling a major step towards manufacturability of the DSI’s 5mm thin drive target.

SII, a leading maker of hard disk drive components with strong expertise in high performance miniature ball bearing and pivot cartridge design, together with DSI will put in significant amount of resources to this collaboration to bring the design of the pivot cartridge towards manufacturing. The pivot assembly is an important component within the hard disk drive which supports the movement of the actuator arm that carries the integrated system of read/write sensors over the media.

DSI’s 5mm hybrid HDD architecture is targeted at addressing the current limitations of both flash-based SSDs as well as the conventional HDD, mitigating areas such as portability, data storage reliability, storage capacity, power consumption and cost. The resulting 5mm hybrid HDD is expected to enhance the next generation of media tablets and mobile computing devices, through increased capacity and reliability.

Our partnership with SII is a step towards materializing the 5mm hybrid hard disk drive, but more importantly, is a recognition from the industry on the viability and potential of 5mm hybrid hard disk drive, said Dr. Pantelis Alexopoulos, Executive Director of DSI.

The development of pivot assembly for 5mm thickness HDD is very challenging. However, with DSIs expertise and strengths in hard disk drive, I strongly believe that our collaboration with DSI will be a resounding success and therefore make a positive contribution in the growth of HDD industry. said Mr. Masao Kasuga, Senior Vice President of SII.