Approaches to 10 Gbit/in.2 recording (invited)

The areal density of manufactured magnetic disk drives is currently advancing at a rate of about 60% per year. Assuming this continues, an areal density of 10 Gbit/in.2 will be reached sometime shortly after year 2000. In this paper, the characteristics of a disk drive with 10 Gbit/in.2 density and the requirements that such an areal density places upon the component technologies necessary to make such a drive possible are discussed. It is projected that smooth, high coercivity and fine grain media, high moment thin film write heads, spin-valve read heads, advanced signal processing techniques, and improved servo systems will make it possible to achieve this goal using flying heads and longitudinal recording.