Showa Denko K.K Increases Production Aluminum Platters for HDDs

Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) has decided to make its consolidated subsidiary Showa Denko HD Yamagata K.K. (SHDY) to increase the capacity of production facilities to produce aluminum platters to be used as hard disk media.

SDK has also decided to diversify and strengthen its supply chains for aluminum platters. As a result, the company’s group’s capacity to produce aluminum substrates for HD media will be increased for about 30% from the current level. In addition, this investment program has been selected by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as a project to be subsidized by a government subsidy program named the Program for Promoting Investment in Japan to Strengthen Supply Chains.

The amount of communicated data is expected to increase drastically due to various factors including the start of 5th generation (5G) mobile communication services, the spread of IoT and teleworking, and the progress and expansion of digital transformation. As a result, the demand for HDDs for use in data centers has been increasing. It is an urgent task for manufacturers of aluminum platters to be used as HD media, which are key parts of HDDs, to secure enough production capacity to ensure stable supply of aluminum platters meeting to the increase in demand. In addition, the firm now produces aluminum platters in Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan, and the major part of our aluminum platter production facilities are located in Malaysia. Therefore, it is necessary for us to improve stability of our supply chains for aluminum platters as countermeasures against the global spread of Covid-19.

To solve these issues, the company decided this time to increase the capacity of aluminum platter production facilities in its domestic production base SHDY, and diversify and strengthen its supply chains for aluminum platters. Installation of additional production facilities will start in February 2021, and we will start operation of additional facilities in the early part of 2022.

The Showa Denko Group’s Vision is to make itself a ‘KOSEIHA Company’ (a group of KOSEIHA Businesses that can maintain profitability and stability at high levels over a long period). The HD media business is one of such KOSEIHA Businesses. As the largest independent HD media supplier, SDK will continue putting HD media into the market before others in accordance with its motto of Best in Class, supporting expansion and evolution of digitized society, and expanding its HD media business.