HDD (Hard Disc Drive) has been a long time leader for major memory devices in personal computers. In all likelihood, there will be no change over the next decade because of the remarkable progress made with respect to capacity by introducing the vertical recording system. Nowadays, a 2.5" drive can have more than 100 GB capacity.

Furthermore, disc drive manufacturers have developed 1.0" or smaller drives for personal portable equipment; the MP3 player distinguishes itself as the first practical application for these small drives. Apple Computer adopted small drives for first generation iPods, but used flash memory because Samsung Electronics offered very aggressive pricing.  The disc drive could control a minor share for large size memory for MP3 products, but HDD cannot capture a significant share with major models that use memory smaller than 1GB.

The VCR camera is the next target for small size disc drives. Magnetic tapes have been the primary memory device for VCR cameras; however, the DVD has rapidly increased its share during the last six months of last year.  At the end of 2005, the market share for tape memory declined to less than 50% and the DVD grew to more than 40%. The other 10% was belonged to disc drives, and they are also increasing share. Current projections can't be determined as to which application will be the predominant leader for memory devices - DVD or HDD.  Although prices for both are twice that compared to traditional tape products, consumers are choosing VCR cameras with these new memories. Hitachi is focused on the DVD type because of its quick response and availability of standard DVD players.  Panasonic determined the HDD is not stable for mechanical shock, so they chose the DVD as the appropriate memory device for the new generation of VCR cameras.

Disc drives can provide much more memory than DVDs.  When JVC introduced a new VCR model with a 30 GB disc drive, its share growth jumped considerably in a short period of time.  Recently, Toshiba rolled out a new VCR camera with a 60 GB disc drive called "Giga Shot R60".  This model has 13 and half hours of recording capacity with the same level of image quality as the DVD. They say that disc drives have broad capabilities that will allow editing data via the personal computers. Sony will have both DVDs and HDDs.

U.S. drive manufacturers still control the majority of the global market; however, Asian manufacturers such as Toshiba, Samsung and Fujitsu are ambitiously developing small drives to gain market share. 

Similar considerations are expected for other applications, such as the next generation of cellular phones and digital cameras. Presumably, circuit board manufacturers are paying attention to the competition. The micro drives consume more multilayer circuit boards and high- density flexible circuits than DVDs. Flash memory consumes small size substrates and no flex circuit. PWB industry hopes disc drives have more share. 

Dominique Numakura, DKN Research

dnumakura@dknresearch.com

Headlines of the week

1.         Hitachi (Major electronics company in Japan) 2/6

Has developed the world smallest IC chip for the wireless IC tag applications. Its standard size is 0.15 mm square with 7.5 micron thick.

2.         Fujikura (Major cable and flex circuit manufacturer in Japan) 2/7

Has founded a new manufacturing company of wire harnesses in Mexico, Automotive America targeting North American automobile market.

3.         Taiyo Yuden (Major passive component supplier in Japan) 2/8

Has been developing 0402 type multi-layer ceramic capacitors (0.4 mm long x 0.2 mm wide) with appropriate assembling technologies.

4.         Alps Electric (Major mechanical component supplier in Japan) 2/8

Has developed a new low profile lever switch (1.2 mm high) for digital camera applications.

5.         DNP (Major printing company in Japan) 2/8

Has started the industry first volume production of the embedded passive multi-layer boards produced by Bt2 technology.

6.         Mektron (The largest flexible circuit manufacturer) 2/8

Has started the volume production of high-density double side flex circuits with 50 micron pitch and 50 micron blind via holes.

7.         MARUWA (Ceramic substrate manufacturer in Japan) 2/8

Is increasing the manufacturing capacity of thin film circuits to cover the increasing demands of automobile customers.

8.         Toshiba (Major electronics company in Japan) 2/8

Will increase the manufacturing capacity of multi chip package of NAND flash memories for growing demands of cellular phones by the 3rd quarter of 2006. 

9.         Casio (Major electronics company in Japan) 2/8

Will organize a new technical consortium "EWLP (Embedded Wafer Level Package)" with CMK to expand the applications.

10.       Kato Denki (Package manufacturer in Japan) 2/8

Will increase the manufacturing capacity of non-lead IC package 50% to 15 million units per month by the second quarter of 2006.

11.       Idemitsu (Major petroleum chemistry company in Japan) 2/8

Will invest 1.5 billion yens to build a new manufacturing plant of organic EL materials. Annual production capacity will be 5 tons in 2007.

12.       Toyo Ink (Major ink supplier in Japan) 2/9

Will supply the organic EL materials to LG Electronics in Korea.

13.       METI (A division of Japanese government) 2/10

Will support the R&D projects of optical and glass devices for the next generation digital electronics. It prepared 360 million yen budget for the first year.

14.       Chi Mei (Major display manufacturer in Taiwan) 2/10

Had a cross license agreement with Sharp for the technologies of LCD panels.

Enlarged the plan of manufacturing capacity of the new 7th generation LCD panel plant to 50 thousand sheet from 30 thousand per month.

15.       Matsushita Electric Works (Major PWB material supplier in Japan) 2/9

Has commercialized a new small pitch connector series (0.4 mm pitch) "F4S" for the connections between rigid boards and flexible circuits.

Interesting literatures about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

1. "The Global Business Trends of the Flexible Circuits, Direction to the High-Density Advanced Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, KPCA Magazine, August, 2005 (Korean language)

2.  "Easy understanding Series, How to make IC packages", (Japanese only), Jan Vardaman & Dominique Numakura, Nikkan Kogyo Shinbun, December, 2005,   1800 yens.

3.  "The latest semiconductor package, Part III", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, February, 2006 

4.  "The Latest Technology Trends of the High Density Electronic Circuits", Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, the Special Edition of Jisso Guidebook, July, 2005

5. "Technical Roadmap of High Density Interconnects with Flexible Substrates in Portable Electronics", Robert Turunen & Dominique Numakura, PCB Design Conference West, Mar. 10, 2005, Santa Clara

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "How to Design with Flex in Mind", Mark Finstad, CircuiTree January, 2005.

2. "Installing Flash LEDs on Flex", Shereen Lim, Circuits Assembly, January, 2006.

3. "PCB Contained? Try Flexing Your Circuits", Ian Gabbitas, SMT, December. 2005

4. "Back to Basic" Susy Webb, Printed Circuit Design & Manufacturing, January 2005.

5. "Ultra-low-loop Wire Bond, Interconnect Solutions for Multi-Stacked Package", Bob Chylak, Stephen Babinetz and Lee Levine, Advanced Packaging, January, 2006

6. "2006 Technology Forecast", electronic design, January 12th, 2006