NEC Electronics Corporation (NEC Electronics), Renesas Technology Corp. (Renesas), NEC Corporation (NEC), Hitachi, Ltd. (Hitachi), and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Mitsubishi Electric) today agreed to enter into negotiations to integrate business operations at NEC Electronics and Renesas.
NEC Electronics was established in 2002, separating from NEC, and Renesas was established in 2003, integrating semiconductor units at Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric. Both as leading semiconductor companies, NEC Electronics and Renesas provide a wide variety of semiconductor solutions, primarily specializing in microcontroller units (MCUs). In light of fierce global competition in the semiconductor market, NEC Electronics and Renesas have agreed to explore the possibility of business integration in order to further strengthen their business foundations and technological assets while increasing corporate value through enhanced customer satisfaction. By integrating the world's two largest MCU suppliers, the new company will provide one of the most competitive MCU product lineups throughout the world.

ATTO Technology and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced interoperability of their respective 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) products designed for use in high-performance server and storage applications. The combination of ATTO ExpressSAS Host Bus Adapters with Hitachi Ultrastar C10K300 hard drives deliver fast 6 Gb/s data transfers for high I/O enterprise environments. The new 6 Gb/s SAS interface delivers 100 percent faster data throughput than previously available using a 3 Gb/s SAS interconnect. The companies began working together early in the development of 6 Gb/s SAS to share design implementations and debug information, as well as conduct extensive testing to ensure an interoperable solution that delivers compatibility and overall system performance.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today introduced its second-generation small form factor enterprise hard drive, the 10K RPM Ultrastar C10K300. The new Hitachi drive is optimized for the power and performance requirements of rack-mounted servers and networked storage arrays. Built using proven Hitachi power management technology, the Ultrastar C10K300 delivers the low power specifications that are of primary importance in today's data centers. The new drives are offered in 147 GB and 300 GB capacities and ship with a dual-port 6 Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, which delivers 100 percent faster data throughput than its 3 Gb/s predecessor. The new industry-standard SAS interface also improves signal strength over greater physical distances, allowing IT managers to deploy larger, more complex storage infrastructures.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced the CinemaStar C5K500, a 2.5-inch hard drive with up to 500GB of audio video storage capacity designed for digital video applications that require compact design and low power usage. This fourth-generation small form factor CinemaStar drive delivers a balance of capacity, cool operation and ruggedness to provide manufacturers with more eco-friendly options for slim digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes and surveillance systems. The CinemaStar drive is designed for use in continuous "24x7" applications and has a read/write power specification that is 22 percent lower than previous models.

Intel Corporation and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced plans to jointly develop and deliver Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Fibre Channel (FC) enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs) for servers, workstations and storage systems.
The combination of a leading Enterprise drive supplier with a NAND technology and manufacturing leader will produce world-class solutions in terms of reliability, performance and system compatibility. The two companies will work together exclusively to deliver enterprise SSDs with SAS and FC interfaces, with the first products expected to be available in early 2010.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today introduced the Travelstar 5K500.B, a mobile hard drive that combines advanced data encryption technology with eco-friendly features, such as halogen-free design and a read/write power specification that is the lowest in the industry.
The drive has earned the new Hitachi EcoTrac classification, used to describe products that minimize environmental impact in the areas of product design, manufacturing, operation and disposal.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi) today introduced two new CinemaStar hard drives optimized for use in digital video recorders (DVRs) and set-top boxes. The CinemaStar 7K1000.B is available in a broad range of capacities up to one terabyte (1TB) and the CinemaStar 5K320 delivers up to 320GB of capacity and incorporates innovative Hitachi CoolSpin technology.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has rolled out its second-generation terabyte hard drive (HDD), which it claimed to be the most energy efficient 7200rpm 1TB HDD. The 3.5" Deskstar 7K1000.B consumes 43 per cent less power than its predecessor, Hitachi said. That's in part because it uses three platters, each holding up to up to 375 GB of data, rather than five, cutting the number of read/write heads from ten to six. Part of the energy-efficiency also comes from the fact that 3Gb/s SATA (SATA II) drives also use power management techniques developed for mobile hard drives.

Hitachi said the drives provide on-board automatic data encryption based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)tough enough for the US government. The Deskstar 7K1000.B and an enterprise version designed for 24/7 operation, the Deskstar E7K1000, go on sale later this month priced at US $239 and US $279, respectively.

The first hard-drive vendor to reach the 1 TB milestone, Hitachi says that it feels positive about being able to supply commercially-available hard-disk drives (HDD) with 5 TB capacities by 2010. The new drives would be able to increase density of information stored on a standard platter using the current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magnetoresistance (CPP-GMR) technique.

This technique aims to push data density above 1 TB per sqare inch though the technology is only starting to get implemented on a large scale. Says Yoshihiro Shiroishi: "By 2010, just two disks will suffice to provide the same storage capacity as the human brain."

As Hollywood prepares to release its latest summer blockbusters, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies proudly introduces two new stars of its own: the CinemaStar C5K320, a 2.5-inch hard drive with up to 320GB capacity and the CinemaStar 5K500, a 3.5-inch hard drive with 500GB of storage capacity and new CoolSpin technology to deliver high levels of power efficiency and quiet operation for digital video applications.

Continuing its longstanding tradition of delivering superior performance with no sacrifices required, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today began shipment of its fourth-generation 7,200 RPM mobile hard drive, the Travelstar 7K320. The new drive delivers 60 percent higher capacity than its predecessor, while improving application performance by 12 percent and power consumption by 22 percent.

Assuming the reins as the enterprise hard drive performance and capacity leader, Hitachi today announced the Ultrastar 15K450. The new drive uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology to deliver 450GB of storage, currently the highest available capacity in 15,000 RPM enterprise-class hard drives. The Ultrastar 15K450 is an ideal solution for mission-critical server and storage applications, such as online transaction processing, intensive database queries and other multi-user applications.

Bolstering Hitachi's position as the segment and technology leader in 2.5-inch hard drives, the company today announced volume shipment of new 5,400 RPM notebook hard drives with a maximum available capacity of 320GB. Designed to support the multi-tasking needs of consumers and commercial users balancing mobile computing and movies, music, photos and games on-the-go, the Travelstar 5K320 delivers the right capacity and performance options to meet the needs of IT and consumer electronics manufacturers. The new drives feature optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for users requiring increased data security and enhanced availability models designed for use in 24x7 environments.

Although not confirmed by any of the firms, this story could have your attention for a moment. According to unspecified sources Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate, is talking to Toshiba and Fujitsu about forming a new company dedicated to hard drives and storage systems. The new company would combine the hard drive divisions of Hitachi and Toshiba as well as some of the storage systems technology from Fujitsu. Each name would own a third of the newly formed venture. It's not a secret that Hitachi is not happy with its current hard drive group, so this may be the best opportunity for them to continue in the right way.

This is another story which is still at the rumour stage I'm afraid, but some sources are claiming that Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu could be planning to form a new company dedicated to producing hard drives and storage systems. The deal would be instead of Hitachi selling its struggling hard drive division to a private equity firm, and comes following unsuccessful talks with Silver Lake, the company responsible for turning around Seagate's fortunes years ago. It is thought that Hitachi is not particularly keen on selling part of its company to 'outsiders' such as Silver Lake for cultural reasons, and would be more trusting of other Japanese companies such as Toshiba and Fujitsu. Any deal is expected to be reached by April 1st, which represents the start of the business year in Japan.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that ASUS has integrated Hitachi's Travelstar 5K500 hard drive into its new M50 and M70 notebook PCs, the latter of which delivers up to 1TB of storage capacity in a two-drive configuration. The companies are breaking new ground in personal computing by combining industry-leading storage capacity - exceeding that of a typical desktop system - with the portability of a notebook PC. One TB of storage capacity translates to 1,000 hours of video, or more than 350 feature length movies or 250,000 four-minute songs.

On the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, at a time when most of the technology world is asking "what's the next big thing?", Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) has answered that question quite literally by introducing the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch mobile hard drive. Setting a new industry benchmark for capacity, the half-terabyte (500GB) Travelstar 5K500 is poised to usher in a new era of "slim" desktops, full-featured notebooks, gaming consoles and other advanced applications for consumers on-the-go.

Hitachi Ltd, Japan's biggest electronics conglomerate, plans to exit the business of making small hard disk drives as demand shifts to flash memory chips, the Nikkei business daily reported on Sunday. Hitachi's hard drive unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc, has already stopped production of 1-inch hard drives and plans to stop shipping 1.8-inch drives around next summer, the newspaper said. The Nikkei also said Hitachi rival Fujitsu Ltd has given up on plans to enter the market for small drives. Fujitsu had been developing 1.8-inch drives with U.S.-based Cornice with plans to bring a product to market in 2007. Hitachi will focus on 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives, anticipating strong demand for the bigger drives that are used in personal computers and digital electronics such as DVD recorders. The move comes as Hitachi considers selling a stake in its loss-making hard drive business to bring in fresh capital and expertise.

Samsung Electronics said on Friday it had agreed with Hitachi Ltd's data storage business unit to a license deal over hard disk drive (HDD) patents. Samsung, the world's largest maker of memory chips, said in a filing with the Korea Exchange that the agreement with Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc covers HDD patents by International Business Machines Corp (IBM) and Hitachi. Japanese electronics conglomerate Hitachi bought IBM's disk drive operations in 2002 for $2 billion. Samsung did not provide details of the licensed patents. Along with the agreement, Samsung and Hitachi would drop patent suits they have filed against each other, Samsung said. Hitachi had sued Samsung in December 2006 and Samsung filed a countersuit in March 2007, a Samsung spokesman said.

The banner for the Hitachi Press Event RSVP proclaims "1.5 is coming." Below is a screen shot taken. Knowing that it is hard disk related, we can now quickly assume that 1.5TB storage solutions from Hitachi GST will be on display at the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) show next year. The CES 2008 will take place in Las Vegas - January 7-10, 2008.

Debuting today, the newest members of Hitachi GST's CinemaStar cast of hard drives are ready for their close-up. Available in both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch sizes, the 3.5-inch 7200rpm CinemaStar P7K500 provides high capacity of up to 500GB, PATA-133/SATA 3.0Gb/s interfaces and 8MB data buffer. The 2.5-inch CinemaStar C5K250 is designed to meet the needs of a growing number of manufacturers who wish to offer video recording and playback features in a small form factor. The drive uses the same SmoothStream technology as its larger 3.5-inch CinemaStar, but offers reduced size up to 250GB, 5400rpm spindle rotation speed, and Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s interface. Find out more info here.

Technology giant Hitachi has announced that it plans to stop selling personal computers to the public, instead choosing to concentrate on other areas such as computers specifically for the broadcasting industry. It will continue to manufacture and sell business computers and will still offer support to any customers who own Hitachi PCs, with the models launched this summer to be the last available on the market. Hitachi has struggled to compete with firms such as Dell and HP, shipping just 134,000 home-use PCs in Japan during the fiscal year leading up to March 2007. Hitachi may also consider selling its hard drive unit soon following losses every year since the company bought the business from IBM for $2 billion in 2002.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) is today delivering the world's most energy efficient desktop hard disk drive (HDD) - the Deskstar P7K500. Hitachi GST has implemented a set of power-saving technologies to reduce the P7K500's active and idle power consumption by up to 40 percent over the previous generation. As a result, the P7K500 achieves best-of-breed power consumption on its one-disk model and significant power savings on its two-disk model, both with 7200 RPM performance and Serial-ATA interface. Hitachi GST's new hard drive is designed for commercial and consumer PCs in capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB. The P7K500 is up to 59 percent more power efficient than comparable 250GB hard drives in its class, based on available specifications.

Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced today they have developed the world's smallest read-head technology for hard disk drives, which is expected to quadruple current storage capacity limits to four terabytes (TB) on a desktop hard drive and one TB on a notebook hard drive.

Electronics company Hitachi has developed a new Blu-ray disk capable of holding 100GB of data by storing it on four layers - as well as maintaining compatibility with current Blu-ray hardware (providing that the firmware is updated). Whilst a 51GB three layer version of HD DVD was recently approved, Hitachi engineers have managed to almost double that figure, and the company is even working on an eight layer version of the Blu-ray disk which could potentially hold 200GB. At present Hitachi is focusing on improving the signal quality of the new disks so that they are ready for the market, but provided the manufacturing costs aren't significantly higher than those of the two layer disks it is likely film companies may opt to use these four layer disks in future so that they can fit even more high definition video on a single disk.