Veeco Ready for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Heads

Veeco Instruments Inc. announced the introduction of the NEXUS TAMR Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) System for next-generation Thermal Assisted Magnetic Recording (TAMR), also known as Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR). The new system and Veeco’s proprietary process deposits a critical optical structure in the read-write head that conducts the heat source used in TAMR. Veeco also announced that a global hard disk drive manufacturer has placed an order for this PVD system to support its deployment of this key technology.

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Robert P. Oates, Executive Vice President of Veeco’s Data Storage business, commented: “The hard disk drive industry’s roadmap requires continued advancement in areal density, and TAMR is widely regarded as the next critical technology to drive densities up to 50 times greater than where the industry is today. Veeco is partnering with our key customers to qualify our new system for production, and we currently expect to receive additional tool orders from multiple customers as the industry adopts TAMR.”

The Veeco NEXUS TAMR PVD System deposits critical low-loss films that make the optical waveguide of the laser. It features heated deposition capability of the oxide films in ‘dielectric’ and ‘metal modes’ of operation. These innovations enable high deposition rates and low optical loss tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) films. The Veeco TAMR PVD System leverages Veeco’s production-proven high rate reactive alumina platform and proprietary process control.

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At least three HDD manufacturers, Hitachi GST, Seagate and WD, are betting on HAMR or TAMR for their future magnetic rigid disk drives currently limited by the superparamagnetic effect and in competition with patterned media. Fujitsu HDD, now Toshiba, was also working on the subject.

Several companies are shipping machines to produce new heads, like Veeco, and new disks for HAMR drives.

Wikipedia gives the following definition of HAMR:" A technology that magnetically records data on high-stability media using laser thermal assistance to first heat the material. HAMR takes advantage of high-stability magnetic compounds such as iron platinum alloy. These materials can store single bits in a much smaller area without being limited by the same superparamagnetic effect that limits the current technology used in hard disk storage. The only catch being that they must be heated to apply the changes in magnetic orientation."