Seagate Technology Inc, which already fabricates thin film disk heads in Northern Ireland, is tipped to move south of the border and establish a disk drive assembly and test facility in the mothballed Clonmel facility vacated amid much controversy by Digital Equipment Corp a couple of years ago. Seagate, which has been buying companies developing storage-related software, is not only interested in investing in software – it has bought a substantial minority interest in CVC Holdings Inc, parent of CVC Products Inc, which makes of fabrication equipment used by semiconductor and data storage device manufacturers worldwide. Terms were not disclosed, but interest in the company is in the Connexion single-wafer cluster tool modular open-architecture system for use in chip and recording head fabrication, which is under development.
