itty-bitty hard drives coming...

[vniow]

Check it:

Cornice Unveils 1-In. HDD Priced Less Than US$100

March 20, 2003 (TOKYO) -- Cornice Inc of the United States revealed a 1-inch hard disk drive (HDD) designed for consumer electronics for an OEM price of less than US$100.

Cornice will launch mass production of the Cornice Personal Storage, the 1-inch HDD with a recording capacity of 1.5GB some time before the second quarter of 2003.

According to the company's estimate, the retail price of music player accommodating this HDD will be US$199 at volume production.

Taking this estimate under consideration, Nikkei Electronics assumes that the OEM price of "Cornice Personal Storage" is expected to be below US$100. This price is much lower than the 1GB Microdrive, provided by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc of the US, whose OEM price ranges US$170 to US$210. Cornice reduced the number of parts largely to cut price. To reduce the number of parts, it substantially changed HDD's architecture.

Cornice Personal Storage is not a removable type, or not designed to be used for a slot with CompactFlash memory cards, but is designed to be embedded inside the device. The company has already done an operation check.

Many HDD makers see that Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd of Korea employed the HDD for its video camera that was exhibited at "CES 2003" in January 2003.

"It is not a downsized HDD of the existing HDD, but is designed from scratch based on the specific purpose that its usage is specified to portable devices and it is used as an embedded device," said an official at Cornice. It does not employ common interfaces such as CompactFlash and ATA to connect a HDD and a host device, but uses a simple and original interface. Furthermore, a part of electronic circuitry is separately designed from the body of the HDD for shared use with a memory and microcomputer of a host device. As a result, the company could reduce electronic parts and ICs to 40 and three, while the existing Microdrive required 110 and six, respectively, according to Cornice.

http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf?CID=onair/asabt/news/237219

 

[MacBandit]

It's soo cute. I can imagine all sorts of devices coming with these. Digital cameras will finally have built in memory and hell you cold put them in radios so that the radio could work like a Tivo. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Vlade]

Someone needs to make a firewire 2+GB one of these under 200 bucks and I will buy it

 

[Mblazened]

awoooooooga

-bandit, love the 'tar!

 

[NavyIntel007]

Did anyone see the next page? Some Chinese company has made a Microdrive that has 2+ GB at a 4200 rotation speed. If they hurry up and get the sizes up we can get smaller ipods!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

That is very cool - 1.5 gigs in a disk that small, I wonder how long we'll have to wait to see them in digital cameras. That's going to be the a key application, even if its a top end camera. Paying over 200 for a gig micro drive isn't that bad, though, and they are used in cameras today.

It might also get the prices down on the microdrives.

D

 

[iJon]

im still surprised they can make 4gb compactflash cards now, those things are small.

iJon

 

[bennetsaysargh]

that's awsome! they need to get the sizes up, and put them in iPods, and save space in laptops.