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Sony set to produce HAMR lasers for Seagate's HAMR drives, report says.
When Seagate formally introduced its first high-volume hard disk drives featuring its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), it implied that all of their components would be produced in-house. However, a new report from Nikkei says that Seagate has teamed up with Sony Group to produce laser diodes for its HAMR write heads. This may signal that Seagate will not put all its eggs in one basket and will rely on laser diodes from Sony as a secondary source.
These laser diodes will be used in 3.5-inch HDDs capable of holding 30+ TB of data, which points to Seagate's Mozaic 3+ hard drive platform. Sony Semiconductor Solutions is set to begin manufacturing the diodes in May, which likely points to SSS being the second source for these diodes, as the first Mozaic 3+ HAMR drives are set to ship in the first quarter.
In HAMR HDDs, the nanophotonic laser diode heats tiny portions of drive media to temperatures of 400°C ~ 450°C to reduce its magnetic coercivity before the plasmonic writer writes data to this area. Seagate does not disclose the exact characteristics of its write heads, and the information about exact temperatures comes from old publications.
To set up new production lines for these diodes, Sony plans to invest approximately ¥5 billion ($33 million) in a facility in Miyagi Prefecture, located in the northern part of Japan's main island, and a factory in Thailand.
New HAMR lasers could usher in 30TB+ HDDs, Seagate and Sony team up for production: Report
Sony set to produce HAMR lasers for Seagate's HAMR drives, report says.
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