We thought it was odd when Uncle Sam chose a company with no experience in very small form factor disk drives, Chatsworth, California-based Micropolis Corp, to lead a national effort to develop a 1Gb 1.8 disk drive last year (CI No 2,535). But the financial woes that afflicted Micropolis have killed the project before it ever got off the ground. The Advanced Research Projects Agency had agreed to put up $10m for the two-year effort but participants are required to put up matching funds, and Micropolis decided not to proceed just before the end of its financial year in March. It said a slump in its turnover meant that it had to cancel a number of its projects including this one. None of the other companies in the consortium – Read-Rite Corp, Silicon Systems Inc, Adaptec Inc, Tulip Memory Systems Inc, Intevac Vacuum Systems Division and the California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles wants to take over the project. The decision to withdraw leaves only Integral Peripherals Inc and Calluna Plc as significant players in the 1.8 disk arena.
