Perpendicular magnetic recording--its development and realization.

The principle of conventional magnetic recording is that magnetic fields are applied parallel to the plane of the magnetic medium. As described in this paper, the invention and development of a new method of placing the magnetized information perpendicular to the plane of the magnetic recording medium is presented. The yield in the mass production of high-density hard disk drives (HDDs) for perpendicular recording is much higher than that of HDDs for conventional recording. Consequently, it is estimated that as many as 75% of the 500 million HDDs to be shipped this year will use this technology.