HDD industry to boost resources and research
Joint-collaboration with US universities
- Published: 7/04/2010 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Database
Attempting to retain Thailand's position as a global hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturing base over the next five years, the HDD industry aims to boost its capabilities in advanced research by collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University and other US universities with the aim of transferring research activities by global HDD suppliers from the US to the Thailand.
Leading hard disk drive manufacturers together with academic institutes and the government announced a HDD Expo which will be organised at Bitec from May 26-28. For more information, visit www.hdd-expo.com.
Sampan Silapanad, president of the Electronic and Computer Employers' Association and vice president of magnetic head operations at Western Digital (Thailand), said Thailand's hard disk drive industry last year was worth 413 billion baht, contributing 4.5 percent of GDP and employing a workforce of around 220,000. The industry also provided local valued added to the country around 100 billion baht.
"However, as hard disk drive manufacturers are listed on the Stock Exchange, they need to consider all possible risk factors in order to continue with future investments and political issues are part of their considerations. The closure of Suvarnabhumi Airport in 2008 had a big impact on business because 80 percent of deliveries are by air," Sampan said.
Meanwhile, Jeff Nygaard, vice president and country manager of Thailand Operations, said worldwide HDD shipments were forecast to reach 650-670 million units this year. This represents a growth of 15 percent compared to last year's shipment of 590 million units.
"Demand for storage is increasing due to rising Internet traffic, which is expected to exceed 56 exabytes per month by 2013, with a compound growth rate of 40 percent. Moreover, although you may not imagine it, 40 exabytes of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year," Nygaard said.
"Mobile wireless, data analytics, digital video and system density have driven storage demand in 2009 to 2011, while cloud computing will play major role in increasing the demand for storage usage from the second half of 2010 to 2012.
"Based on Seagate's more-than 26 years experience in Thailand, we have seen continuous growth of the HDD industry, shifting from low-technology production utilising a massive workforce to high-technology production utilising a highly efficient automated process in the last 10 years.
"Thailand and Asia are part of a growth of opportunities, especially in the time that technology shifted from existing technology to the heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) process to increase its density," Nygaard said.
Chayakrit Charoensiriwath, researcher at the Hard Disk Drive Institute (HDDI), said there is a possibility of establishing joint research collaboration with leading universities in the United States, such as the University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to transfer knowledge in HDD core technology.
"This is an important milestone to uplift Thailand to the upstream level of the industry in order to retain the country's attractiveness as a key HDD manufacturing base. And there is a need for a government budget of at least 200-300 million baht to support scholarships and joint research activities, which is very small compared to the 100 billion baht valued added the industry contributes to the country," Chayakrit said.
The industry source said Thailand has been a long-established HDD manufacturing base, with four global HDD manufacturers locating major manufacturing bases here and it needs a lot of investment in order to build new factories. If Thailand can uplift its technical capability in advanced research, there is a possibility that Western Digital and Seagate Technology will consider moving some parts of their research and development to Thailand.
"However, there are some challenges from the current political instability as well as inflexible of Board of Investment policies compared to Malaysia, Singapore, China and Vietnam, neighbouring countries that have policies that attract new investment to the HDD industry," Chayakrit said. He added that in the past few years, HDDI had received funding from the government for high level scholarships in master's and doctoral degrees as well as joint research projects with the private sector, which showed that Thailand can provide around 30 percent of the overall assembly line production machine tools for HDD.
Within the next five years, HDDI is expected to provide at least 70 percent of the machine tools for the HDD production process for local SMEs.
Apinunt Thanachayanont, Dean of the College of Data Storage Technology and Applications at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Lat Krabang, said there is an opportunity to attract HDD industry research and development to Thailand because this is a time of technological transition in the production process. "If R&D is established here, close to the manufacturing base, when a factory has a problem it will be easier to solve the problem and control the process rather than flying in an expert from US.
Currently, there is a collaboration, the Industry/University Collaborative Research Centre, which involves HDDI, 20 academic alliances and private manufacturers to conduct joint research.
Academic experts will play an important role in solving industrial problems so there is a need to increase the number of master's and doctoral degree-holders to at least 300 people to serve the industry.
Relate Search: Sampan Silapanad, Electronic and Computer Employers' Association, Western Digital
About the author
- Writer: Suchit Leesa-nguansuk
- Position: Reporter
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