Herbert Lin, VP of Western Digital, gave the talk at CAISS Annual Conference 2012, as part of the panel discussion: Storage Component Technologies - Enable Big Data and Make Better Cloud Computing.

1. Big Data and Cloud Storage
--- A Recording Head Perspective
Herbert Lin
VP, Heads R&D, Western Digital
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2. 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
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WD Confidential

3. 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
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WD Confidential

4. 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
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5. 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

6. 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
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WD Confidential

7. Wafer Mask Layer Increases
AD growth requirements continuously drive
wafer process complexity on the same
magnitude as semiconductor industry
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8. 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 $$
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WD Confidential

9. 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
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WD Confidential

10. Thank You
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