After more than half a year of intense construction, the newly established hard disk factory was completed one after another.

The largest of these was built by the platter factory, and the platter produced this time was very different from the previous platter, and both sides of the platter were coated with magnetic materials, which increased the capacity of the hard disk to 20MB. The previous 10MB hard drive was only half coated with platters.

The magnetic head factory is the second largest factory, and here Li Yixuan has made a small improvement to the magnetic head. The head is the most precise and core part of the hard disk, if you want to increase the capacity of the hard disk, you have to improve the read and write sensitivity of the head. The higher the sensitivity, the greater the capacity of the hard drive.

The earlier magnetic head used ferromagnetic material, which was not very ideal in magnetic induction sensitivity, so the capacity of a single disk in the early days was relatively low, and the track density on the disk was large if the capacity of a single disk was large, and the magnetic head induction degree was not enough, so it could not accurately read the data. As a result, the capacity of the early hard drives was limited.

In addition, the initial head is read and write function together, which has high requirements for the manufacturing process and technology of the head, and for personal computers, in the process of exchanging data with the hard disk, reading data is much faster than writing data, and the characteristics of reading and writing operations are completely different, so some scientists propose to divide reading and writing into two different heads, which work separately and do not interfere.

Historically, Western Digital was the first to introduce discrete heads and came up with the idea of a medium read/write speed head for personal computers.

Because of Li Yixuan, an interloper, this achievement has become his. The operation mode of the magnetic head designed by Li Yixuan is different from the common operation mode of the magnetic head in later generations, he puts the reading and writing heads on two independent steering arms, and the steering arms adopt the opposite layout. The biggest advantage of this method is that the two heads can completely avoid interfering with each other, and the disadvantage is that it occupies a large space and increases the manufacturing cost of the hard disk.

The reason why Li Yixuan adopted this model was not limited by the technical limitations of the hard disk control CPU at that time. The 65C02CPU has a big flaw, but who can you choose if you don't choose it? At that time, Oranges did not have the capacity to build a chip factory.

But now that Li Yixuan has this ability, and the hard disk master control chip has also been designed, there is no need to continue to use this high-cost two-steering arm opposite layout mode.

Li Yixuan borrowed from the heterotropic magnetoresistive working mode, anisotropic magneto resistive, referred to as AMR magnetoresistive, which is the predecessor of the giant magnetoresistive head. However, the AMR head is too advanced for this era, and there is no need to take it out now, but some of the AMR technologies can still be used for reference.

The biggest feature of AMR is that it can complete the reading and writing operations with a single head, and the cost is very low.

How? One has to admire the wisdom of scientists. The two heads are coiled around to form a common core, which replaces the previous ferromagnetic material. What really stuns people is how it works, when you want to write data to the hard disk, the coil is energized to generate a current to the writing head, which stores the data on the platter. When reading data, the reading head reads the data by sensing changes in the magnetic field on the rotating platter.

Following the working principle of AMR, Li Yixuan decided to use a magnetic head to complete the read and write operations of the hard disk. The magnetic head is wound directly around the core, and the data is read by sensing the change of the magnetic field on the rotating platter when the hard disk is working; When it is necessary to write data, when the platter passes under the winding core, it will generate an induced voltage on the head, and the generated induced voltage will be transmitted to the head and the core to form an induced resistance effect, which in turn affects the microcurrent on the head, so as to complete the data writing to the platter.

The advantage of this is that it saves great cost and space; But the disadvantage is also obvious, because it is replaced with a single head, and a head to complete the reading and writing, so the sensitivity of the head will be greatly weakened, resulting in a significant reduction in the capacity of the hard disk.

But there is no problem with a 20MB capacity hard disk, as long as the upper limit of the capacity of a single platter does not exceed 200MB, Li Yixuan's castrated version of the AMR head is completely sufficient.

In addition to the new hard disk master control chip, all the technology and materials of the 20MB capacity hard disk are ready.

Although the chip factory also adopts a steel structure workshop, the steel structure workshop of the chip is much more complex than the general steel structure workshop. The general steel structure can be completed in half a year at most, but the construction period of the chip factory takes one year.

The international hard disk drive market has changed a lot in this year, Seagate was founded in 1979 as in history, due to the butterfly effect of Li Yixuan, the time has just entered 1980, Seagate launched their first hard disk for personal computers.

And the capacity is not the original 5MB, like Oranges, it is agreed to be 10MB. Affected by Oranges' hard drives, Seagate also separated the read and write heads, and also arranged them in opposite directions.

In order to circumvent Oranges' hard drive head patent, Seagate directly used floppy drive head technology.

In particular, Seagate's disc manufacturing technology actually uses tempered plexiglass as the disc base, instead of using a plastic disc base as in history, adding a thin layer of aluminum foil to the surface and coating the aluminum foil with magnetic materials. When the hard disk is working, the resistance of the thin strip changes due to the change in the polarity of the magnetic field caused by the rotation of the platter, so as to improve the reading sensitivity of the reading head.

There is no big difference between the writing head and Li Yixuan's writing head, which also uses the resistive effect generated by current induction to write data.

During the entire reading and writing process, neither the read nor write heads need to be in direct contact with the platter.

Seagate's first hard drive was not the historic 5.25-inch, but the same 3.5-inch with a capacity of 10MB as Oranges. It retails for the same $120 as Oranges, which has just been lowered.

Li Yixuan called Wang Lili and Cao Yajing for a short meeting.

"You have all read the fax from the United States, Seagate has entered, the field of personal computer hard disk is not our Oranges company alone, more and more companies will join the field of personal computer hard disk in the future, and the competition will be very fierce." Li Yixuan said.

In fact, it's far more than that,Seagate is different from other American companies,He was the first in history to start a price war for hard disks,Defeated many competitors with a low-price strategy,Just like the original Changhong color TV in China,The land price strategy has defeated many small and medium-sized TV manufacturers。

Cao Yajing said: "We are not afraid of each other's low-price competition. I asked the technical department, the production cost of the other hard drive is twice as high as ours, the cost of each hard drive is $60, even if they increase the production to 10 units/year, the cost of each hard drive is as high as $55, while the cost of our hard drive is 30 dollars per hard drive, and the cost of a single hard drive can be reduced to $25 due to the newer manufacturing process. We plan to increase our annual hard drive production to 1 million units in the next three years, and our cost per hard drive will be less than $15 by then. ”

Li Yixuan nodded, indeed Seagate was influenced by him, and made major technical improvements to personal computer hard disks, and the cost of hard disks was much lower than in history, but it still could not be compared with the cost of Oranges' hard disks, in addition to the labor costs in the United States and Hong Kong, more importantly, Seagate did not master the largest platter in the cost of hard disks, and used tempered glass as the disk base.

The production cost of this kind of disc is much higher than Li Yixuan's acetate fiber glass, and the other party has no chance of winning the price war. What's more, the tempered glass disc has limited room for upgrading, and the capacity of each piece will be increased to 3.33GB, unless Seagate's head technology can make a major breakthrough and use magnetoresistive technology heads in advance. Otherwise, you have to look for new substrate materials.

"Are the hard drive heads made by Seagate itself?" Wang Lili asked.

Li Yixuan replied: "No, the current Seagate hard disk head is provided by RB Fujitsu. By the way, the 3.5-inch floppy drive just released by Sony has also been provided by Fujitsu. ”

"Is Fujitsu's head technology very good, and how does it compare to us?" Wang Lili didn't understand hard disks and asked a lot of basic things.

Li Yixuan didn't show impatience, he knew that the other party didn't understand, and patiently explained: "Fujitsu's magnetic head technology is not as good as ours, but you can't underestimate him, especially in the two items of magnetic head reset and magnetic head seismic resistance, no one dares to call him the first in the world." But you don't have to worry, Seagate can't always rely on external procurement for such a major technology as the head, and sooner or later it will enter the production of the head technology. ”

There is one thing that Li Yixuan did not say, historically RB's Toshiba hard drives, and its heads have always been provided by Fujitsu. Due to the excellent shock resistance and reset properties of Fujitsu's heads, Fujitsu heads have always been the first choice for mobile hard drives, and Toshiba hard disks are world-renowned for their mobile hard drives.

Toshiba is in the field of mobile mechanical hard disks, and even the Yankees are willing to bow down.

However, Toshiba's involvement in hard disks is a matter of 93 years later, and mobile hard disks will not be until after 98 years, Li Yixuan has no need to say it, just reminded Cao Yajing not to underestimate Fujitsu.

"If Fujitsu can produce hard disk heads, will it also produce hard disk disks itself?" Wang Lili grasped the key.

That's a good question, but Li Yixuan can't answer her directly. Because Fujitsu's involvement in hard drives was after 93. Fujitsu prefers 2.5-inch notebook hard drives over 3.5-inch hard drives. 2.5-inch notebook hard drives are the market segment of hard drives, just like Toshiba is the leader of 2.5-inch portable hard drives, Fujitsu is the king of the notebook hard drive market.

These things have not happened yet, Li Yixuan can't explain directly, he can only say: "Although Fujitsu produces magnetic heads, the magnetic head technology is developed together with Toshiba, and these two companies have long entered the heart of the hard disk market." Their technology is not weaker than ours, and we should be vigilant. ”

Then he said: "Although we are not afraid of a price war with the other party, we can't always rely on the price war model, and technological upgrading is the king of our future development." What stage is the chip factory going on now. ”

Wang Lili said: "Due to the very high technical content of the chip factory, the construction is difficult, the construction period is long, and it is the first time we have built such a plant, the construction progress is not very ideal. ”

She also wanted to build the chip factory as soon as possible, but the difficulty of building the chip factory was far beyond her imagination, in order to ensure quality and accumulate technology and experience, she had to slow down the construction speed, which Li Yixuan had known for a long time and had agreed with him. Compared with the hasty launch of hard disk control chips, Li Yixuan attaches more importance to the follow-up technology and experience accumulation.

"Can you find other infrastructure companies to work with?" Cao Yajing hopes to complete the construction of the chip factory soon.

Without Wang Lili answering, Li Yixuan directly denied: "It's useless, none of the infrastructure companies in Hong Kong has the strength to build chip factories, and the chip factory of Huake Electronics is built by an American company and is a turnkey project." What's more, the chip factory in the United States adopts a reinforced concrete frame structure, which is a whole generation behind our steel structure workshop, not to mention the more difficult technology, and the construction period is longer. Take the chip factory of Huake Electronics as an example, his factory took a total of three years from the start of construction to production. ”

Far from being one generation behind, but three generations behind, Li Yixuan's steel structure chip factory uses too many advanced and mature design and construction concepts from later generations. On the surface, there is no difference, if Li Yixuan doesn't take the initiative, they don't know what's going on, let alone know that the gap between the two will be so big.

This principle is the same as the fact that the bun has a filling and is not on the folds, on the surface it is the same bun, and no one knows whose bun filling is big if you don't peel it off. But can the chip factory peel off the wall directly like a bun? It's definitely impossible.

Even if you peel it off and don't tell the other party the design understanding and construction essence of the steel structure workshop, the other party can't see the truth here. I will only feel that there is no difference with the reinforced concrete frame factory, and the other party will only think that one uses reinforced concrete to make the frame, and Li Yixuan directly uses steel, which is the difference.

The design and construction technology of the steel structure chip factory is extremely misleading.