October 15, 2007

World’s smallest read head enables 4TB drive

by Jan Harris

World's smallest read head enables 4TB drive
Hitachi’s Global Storage Technologies division has developed the world’s smallest read head for hard drives.

The new ‘current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magnetoresistive heads’ (CPP-GMR heads), will allow Hitachi to continue to increase the density of drives.

Hitachi expects to be able to release 4TB (terabyte) drives in 2011 and possible 1TB notebook drives.

The innovative CPP-GMR drive changes the fundamental structure of drive heads.

Current drives have a tunnel magnetoresistance head, where an insulating layer is sandwiched between two magnetic layers.

Electrons can be made to precisely tunnel through the layer, creating the ones and zeros of data.

If this type of drive head is shrunk, electrical resistance increases, creating more electrical noise and potential decline in performance.

In the new CPP-GMR head, the insulating layer is replaced with a conductor, usually copper.

Instead of running parallel with the middle layer, the current runs at a perpendicular angle. This reduces resistance and therefore allows the head to be shrunk without loss of performance.

While current drive heads can read media with tracks 70 nanometers apart, a CPP-GMR head can read media where the tracks are just 50 nanometers apart, or even smaller.

Fify nanometer tracks are expected to come to market in 2009, and 30 nanometer tracks, in 2011.

Hitachi will announce the technology at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo, 15 – 17 October.

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