Receive Info
Financial Info
Stock Info & Tools
Events & Archives
Corporate Info





 
 

2006 Annual Reprot
Intro       Volume Growth       Technology Transitions       Launch of Inspectra™ StO2       Closing
Technology Transitions

To maintain our industry leadership and meet customers’ requirements, we have made significant investments in new capabilities for producing suspension assemblies and in the capacity required for a changing product mix. The mix of suspension assemblies making up future volume will accommodate smaller recording heads, finer electrical conductors and advanced features needed to achieve specific performance criteria.

To meet this market need, we are enhancing our current “subtractive” manufacturing processes to enable production of advanced TSA products incorporating finer conductors and features. We are also simultaneously developing “additive” processes that build up rather than etch out even finer conductors and features, to create our TSA+ platform.

Our progress on both our advanced subtractive processes and new TSA+ additive processes is proceeding as planned, which will enable us to meet market requirements resulting from further increases in data density and the continuing shift to smaller form factor recording heads and disk drives.

We delivered initial samples of TSA+ suspensions in late 2006 and expect to have a volume TSA+ production line ready during 2007. TSA+ suspensions will likely account for only a small portion of our total 2007 shipments, which will give us time to gain proficiency with the related new processes ahead of our expected shift to this platform.

We are also managing process development, capacity expansion and related capital investment and research and development spending to balance near-term volume and product mix with longer term demand trends and customer adoption of new technologies. During 2006, we deferred some equipment deliveries and installations to adjust for weaker near-term demand. However, some of our capital investments related to longer lead-time projects. These projects could not be deferred without jeopardizing the development and availability of capabilities we will need to meet future customer requirements and maintain our industry leadership.




 

 

 





About Us
Employment
Investors
Products
Locations
Contact Us
Site Map
Home