Seagate 2011 Annual Report Download - page 11

Table of Contents
Storage services. Companies that provide services and solutions related to the backup, archiving, recovery and discovery of electronic
data.
Our Business
Disk Drive Technology
The design and manufacturing of disk drives depends on highly advanced technology and manufacturing techniques and therefore requires
high levels of research and development spending and capital equipment investments. Manufacturing our disk drives is a complex process that
begins with the production of individual components and ends with a fully assembled disk drive. We design, fabricate and assemble a number of
the most important components found in our disk drives, including read/write heads and recording media. Our design and manufacturing
operations are based on technology platforms that are used to produce various disk drive products that serve multiple data storage applications
and markets. Our core technology platforms are focused around the areal density of media and read/write head technologies. Using an integrated
platform design and manufacturing leverage approach allows us to deliver a portfolio of disk drive products to service a wide range of electronic
data storage applications and a wide range of industries.
Disk drives that we manufacture are commonly differentiated by the following key characteristics:
• storage capacity, commonly expressed in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB), which is the amount of data that can be stored on the
disk drive;
•
spindle rotation speed, commonly expressed in revolutions per minute (RPM), which has an effect on speed of access to data;
• interface transfer rate, commonly expressed in megabytes per second, which is the rate at which data moves between the disk
drive and the computer controller;
•
average seek time, commonly expressed in milliseconds, which is the time needed to position the heads over a selected track on
the disk surface;
• data transfer rate, commonly expressed in megabytes per second, which is the rate at which data is transferred to and from the
disk drive;
•
product quality and reliability, commonly expressed in annualized return rates; and
• energy efficiency, commonly measured by the power output necessary to operate the disk drive.
Areal density is a measure of storage capacity per square inch on the recording surface of a disk. The storage capacity of a disk drive is
determined by the number of disks it contains as well as the areal density capability of these disks. We have been pursuing, and will continue to
pursue, a number of technologies to increase areal densities across the entire range of our products for expanding disk drive capacities and
reducing the number of disks and heads per drive to further reduce product costs.
Manufacturing
Vertically integrated hard drive manufacturers design and produce their own read/write heads and recording media, which are critical
technologies for disk drives. This integrated approach enables manufacturers to lower costs and to improve the functionality of components so
that they work together efficiently.
We believe that because of our vertical design and manufacturing strategy, we are well suited to meet the challenges posed by the close
interdependence of components for disk drives. Our manufacturing
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