Quantum Corp, Milpitas effectively returned to volume disk drive manufacturing when it bought Digital Equipment Corp’s dish drive business; now it is getting out again. It has signed long-time partner Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd to an exclusive manufacturing agreement covering all its hard disk drive products. In addition to the desktop products, the Matsushita unit will now manufacture Quantum’s high-capacity disk drives beginning with products currently in development. Quantum expects to report a non-recurring charge of $160m to $190m against this quarter’s figures to cover the cost of closing its disk plants in Penang, Malaysia and Milpitas.The charges include write-off of capital equipment and inventory and redundancy pay for about 1,800 regular and 450 temporary employees. Matsushita has facilities in Japan, Singapore, and Ireland, each dedicated exclusively to the Quantum products.
