Turns out that Hewlett-Packard Co had a lot of help from its friends Citizen Watch Co and AT&T Co in the creation of its 1.3 Kittyhawk Personal Storage Module disk drive (CI No 1,938): working with AT&T Microelectronics, Hewlett-Packard was able to limit the number of integrated circuits in the thing to just seven, compared with 20 to 30 typically used in 1.8 and and 2.5 drives; Citizen will provide precision microassembly and automated manufacturing; the nanoslider heads come from Read-Rite Corp and make possible an areal density of 111M-bits per square inch; the drive comes with AT or Personal Computer Memory Card International Association interface and the single-unit OEM evaluation price is $450; evaluation units are available now; volume OEM pricing is targeted to be $250 and production units are expected to be out in the autumn.
