Topic: Hitachi
Category: Articles
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It must be national LSI week in Japan, because Hitachi announced their new hardware today. It's an LSI for hard drives, that has the world's fastest internal transfer speed - 2.5Gb/sec. I'm not sure if I should be excited about this or not, because it's an "internal" transfer speed. Does this mean a drive using this LSI could write data that quickly? I guess not, because the rest of the architecture would need to support it, such as the platters, write heads, interface, etc.. I really don't know enough about the inner workings of a HD to make a judgement about this, but the prospect of having a 2.5Gb/sec HD is still pretty rad. Can anyone offer more insight?

Hitachi Corporation will begin shipment of samples of the "HDL6D300 series" pre-amps for HDs o­n March 22nd, whose internal data transfer speed is 2.5 gigabits per second. The preamp is the LSI in a hard drive that performs the writing and reading of information o­n a magnetic disk with a magnetic head. The high speed internal data transfer rate has been accomplished by using a mainframe processor, and the ultra-high speed light-wave communication LSI "SOI SiGe BiCMOS Device." According to Hitachi, 2.5Gbit/sec is the fastest internal data transfer rate in the world.

Also, GMR heads and TMR heads will be supported with the "Parallel Non-Returning Read Circuitry," meaning 2nd generation high efficiency hard drives can be developed.

Finally, the LSI uses "Zero Common Circuitry" eliminating electrical discharge between the disk surface and magnetic head, as well as reducing "Cross Talk" that happens between the write head and read head. This protects the read head, and increases reliability.

Inspired by:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0317/hitachi.htm

News Release:
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/040317.html

Product Information:
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/Div/ddc/product/product.html