Abstract
The original hard disk drive, RAMAC 305, introduced by IBM in 1957, had an a real density of 2,000 bits/inch square and used ferrite cores hand wound with copper wire as read-write heads. Today commercial systems have storage density of 100 Gigabits/inch square and laboratory tests are approaching 150 Gigabits/inch square, a density once thought to be unattainable. This represents eight orders of magnitude increase in aerial density in 47years. Four orders of magnitude of this jump was achieved since commercial introduction by IBM, of the inductive, multi turn, batch fabricated thin film heads in 1979.
Since introduction of the thin film heads the cost of storage has dropped four orders of magnitude, the data rate has increased several orders of magnitude. This has had a significant effect on enabling the desk and lap-top computers, data mining and Internet. Data stored half way around the world are found and delivered through high speed interconnections in fractions of seconds.
This presentation will concentrate on the technology which was originally invented at the T. J Watson Research Center of IBM in Yorktown Height, NY and was developed jointly with IBM San Jose, CA into a manufacturing process in use for commercial production of thin film heads. Since invention of the batch fabrication of the thin film heads the magnetic storage has undergone two paradigm shifts. Today we stand on the verge of one more paradigm shift which, while using the fundamental processes developed some 35 years ago promises to extend magnetic storage density another one to two orders of magnitude. This process, based on electrochemical technology created new era in hard disk storage while at the same time it resulted in a quantum jump for application of electrochemical technology in electronics and MEMS.
Biography
Dr. Lubomyr T Romankiw is an IBM Fellow at the IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, where he has been associated since 1962. He received his early education in Ukraine, his B. Sc in Chem. Eng. from U of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 1957, and his M. Sc.and Ph.D. degrees in Metallurgy and Materials from MIT in 1962. He holds 57 patents, has over 120 published inventions, published more than 150 scientific papers, six book chapters and has edited ten volumes of symposia proceedings in the areas of: (1) Magnetic Materials, Processes and Devices; and (2) Electrochemistry in Electronics.
His research has dealt with nearly all aspects of electroless plating, electroplating, etching, lithography and micro-fabrication used in electronics. He pioneered plating through mask technology used in thin film heads in magnetic storage, and conceived and developed the entire fabrication process, which to this day, is the basis for manufacturing of magnetic storage heads around the world. He developed an entirely new approach to use of lithography and micro-fabrication techniques, applied them to magnetic head fabrication and then extended them to X-ray lithography mask fabrication, plating of thin film chip carriers, C-4 interconnects, and to copper metallization of silicon chips and MEMS.
Dr. Romankiw is very active in the Electrochemical Society and AESF. Has organized ten major scientific symposia. He is a member of ECS, ISE, AESF, IEEE, SPIE, Shevchenko Sci. Soc., Ukrainian Eng. Soc., and the Engineering Academy of Ukraine.
Dr. Romankiw is ECS Fellow, IEEE Fellow, IBM Fellow, and an Honorary member of the ECS and of the Shevchenko Scientific Society .He shared ECS Research Award for his invention of laser enhanced plating. He holds many IBM, US National and International Outstanding Invention and Contribution Awards
For his seminal contributions to magnetic storage technologies Dr. Romankiw received one of the highest honors of ECS, the Vittoria de Nora Medal of the ECS in 1994, one of the highest honors of the IEEE, the Morris A. Lieberman Award and he was named an IEEE Fellow in 1996. "For his major contributions to science, technology and in particular for demonstrating manufacturing worthy processes which created a $7 billion dollar thin film head industry", he was awarded in 1993 the highest honor of the Societies of Chemical Industries the PERKIN GOLD MEDAL.