PMR Inventor Sees Result of Life's Work
Tues 08 May, 2007

Dr. Shun-ichi Iwasaki (left), considered the father of modern perpendicular recording (PMR), makes his first visit to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies’ manufacturing facility in Prachinburi province, Thailand to witness the production of Hitachi’s Travelstar 2.5-inch hard drives. Dr. Iwasaki, accompanied here by Hitachi GST chairman and CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi (right), was among the early testers of a prototype PMR Travelstar product in 2005; Hitachi’s first full-production perpendicular recording hard drive – the Travelstar 5K160, considered the industry's most reliable – was produced in this same Thailand plant last year.