Komag, Incorporated, organized in 1983, designs, manufactures and markets thin-film media, or disks, that are incorporated into disk drives, the primary storage devices for digital data. Disk drives incorporating thin-film disks are used wherever large amounts of data are stored, including applications such as the Internet, enterprise databases, communications systems, personal computers and consumer appliances such as peer-to-peer servers, digital video recorders and game boxes.
Komag manufactures and sells thin-film magnetic media on rigid disk platters for use in hard disk drives. These drives are used to record, store and retrieve digital information. Inside a disk drive, the disk rotates at speeds of up to 15,000 rpm. The head scans across the disk as it spins, magnetically recording or reading information. The domains where each bit of magnetic code is stored are extremely small and precisely placed. The tolerances of the disks and recording heads are extremely demanding and the interaction between these components is one of the most critical design aspects in an advanced disk drive.
The Company's plating, polishing and texturing processes produce a uniform disk surface that is smooth at an atomic level. This smoothness permits the read/write heads to fly over the disk surface at glide heights of 0.4 to 0.7 microinches. Disks must be made in a clean environment to limit surface defects. Even a handful of defects, a fraction of a micron in diameter, could cause the disk to fail. The magnetic alloys deposited on the surfaces of the Company's disks have high coercivity, low noise and other desirable magnetic characteristics. Finally, a protective layer of diamond-hard carbon and a layer of lubricant, each of which is controlled to a tolerance of a few angstroms, is applied to the disk surface to prevent wear. The continued improvement in these and other factors has resulted in rapid advancement in the amount of data a disk is capable of storing.
Komag sells primarily GMR media for 3 1/2-inch disk drives. The Company's products offer a range of coercivities, glide height capabilities and other parameters to meet specific customer requirements. The Company sells its media products primarily to independent disk drive manufacturers for incorporation into hard disk drives. Disk drives, in turn, are sold to computer or consumer appliance manufacturers that incorporate the disk drives into their systems, or are sold directly to consumers. The Company's major customers include Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate Technology.
The Company is the largest independent manufacturer of disks. Other independent manufacturers include several Japanese firms, including Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Fuji Electric, Showa Denko and Hoya, and Trace Storage in Taiwan.
Penny King Holdings Corporation, a Delaware Investment Holding Company.
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