History (1997): European Project for Automatic Assembly of GMR Heads

Under the aegis of the Eureka program, the European Community has launched a new project, called MAG.RES.HEAD, at a cost of €14.5 million ($16 million) for “the fully automatic assembly for high performance, magneto-resistive heads.”

Participants include DMC (Bairo, Italy), along with the French firms Silmag and LETI (Grenoble, France).

The 3 know each other well. LETI (Technology and Instrumentation Electronics Laboratory), a research division of the Center for Nuclear Studies, is behind the technology used in the manufacturing of Silmag’s magnetic planar heads in St. Egreve, France. DMC, part of the Olivetti Technologies Group, is one of the original investors in Silmag, and one of the few HSA assemblers in Europe.

The MAG.RES.HEAD project consists of 3 parts:

1. the development of a microelectronic process and the wafer static test to produce MR pico-sliders with micro-bonding techniques;
2. the studies in order to optimize the slider, HGA and HSA design; and
3. the design of an automated factory.

The operation’s ultimate goal is to automate the manufacturing process and so economize on labor during HGA and HSA assembly, which would mark a major innovation on current practices.

The European venture, finalized in May, is scheduled through July 2000.

In the conclusion of their report, the project organizer’s states, “… this project is really the first step towards ~ creating a strong storage industry in Europe.”

The stakes are high.

Among Silmag’s main ambitions: to enter Nasdaq via an IPO.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 118 on November 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: IPO never happens and Silmag went into liquidation in 1998. It saw its turnover grow to FF210 million 1997 (with FF16 million loss), vs. FF21 million in 1995. However, the company was hit hard by the difficulties experienced at Samsung, Silmag’s sole customer, as a result of the Asian crisis.