ASIA
Japan : Showa Denko K.K.’s (SDK) 0.85-inch-diameter hard disk
media, the smallest in the world, has been adopted by Toshiba Corporation
in its latest mobile phone “MUSIC-HDD W41T”.
The
new mobile phone, containing a four gigabyte hard disk drive, can
store approximately 2,000 pieces of music and use KDDI’s “au
LISTEN MOBILE SERVICE.”
In
June 2005, SDK started commercial production of this type of media,
which is approximately 22 mm in diameter, or the size of a 100-yen
coin. A hard disk drive containing the 0.85-inch media is almost the
same in size as a memory card. The HD media provides large capacity
sufficient for receipt of music via Internet.
A holder of the
W41T-model mobile phone can enjoy the contents of music CDs transmitted
via PC or download music using a mobile transmission service, which
is expected to become very popular. The mobile phone can also handle
up to 5,000 pieces of pictures and up to 18 hours of moving pictures.
SDK is the world’s
largest independent supplier of HD media (based on our estimate as
of March 2006), continuing to launch new products using advanced technologies.
In June 2005, SDK also started world’s first commercial production
of HD media based on the perpendicular magnetic recording technology,
enabling a dramatic increase in storage capacity.
SDK is building
a new HD media plant in Singapore for start-up in November 2006. Together
with expansions at the existing locations in Chiba (Japan), Singapore
and Taiwan, SDK’s total HD media production capacity will increase
to 24 million disks per month by the end of 2008, or 2.2 times that
of 2005.