John Walko

EE Times

(05/12/2005 7:06 AM EDT)

LONDON — Toshiba Corp. has strengthened its grip on the small hard-disk drive (HDD) business with its acquisition of Panasonic Shikoku Electronics` HDD design center. Terms were not disclosed.

The design center (Fremont, Calif.) will support HDD development at Toshiba`s Ome operations in Japan. The facility — and the 50 product design engineers who will join Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. — will also provide engineering support to PC and consumer electronics companies.

``Acquisition of this design center greatly bolsters our global engineering organization and represents Toshiba`s commitment to driving innovation in small form factor hard- disk drives,`` said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager of Toshiba`s Storage Device Division.

Toshiba is an early small HDD innovator, introducing what was then the world`s smallest hard-disk drive — 0.85 inches. It was also among the first companies to announce products that incorporate perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), which is used in its 1.8-inch HDD scheduled to ship in the second quarter.

Toshiba currently leads the 1.8-inch HDD market with more than 14 million units shipped since its launch in 2000. The company also recently surpassed the 80-million milestone for 2.5-inch HDDs shipped.