LSI TrueStore PA5200 pre-amplifiers increase HDD areal density and manufacturing yield

USA: LSI Corp. announced that its TrueStore PA5200 series of pre-amplifiers has enabled hard disk drive (HDD) designers to increase areal density, delivering greater storage within each square inch of disk surface. The superior noise performance of the PA5200 provides the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gains that can then be leveraged by HDD manufacturers to achieve greater manufacturing yield.

Confirmed by multiple industry tests, these performance improvements were predicted by LSI read channel and preamp system simulations for production solutions.

The intelligent PA5200 preamplifier provides HDD manufacturers with the flexibility to deploy a common IC capable of serving all major HDD market applications -- including 2.5-inch HDDs for notebooks, 3.5-inch desktop HDDs, enterprise HDDs and hybrid HDDs. Hard drive makers who integrate TrueStore PA5200 preamps into drive assemblies can benefit from lower development costs, simplified inventory management and accelerated time-to-market.

Additionally, the PA5200 SNR advantage allows a higher HDD production yield, resulting in lower manufacturing costs and increased value for customers.

The TrueStore PA5200 production volume pricing is anticipated to be $0.89 each for 2-channel models, $1.09 each for 4-channel models and $1.89 each for 8-channel models.