Western digitally corporation (often simply shortened with WD) is a large manufacturer of non removable disks with head office in Lake Forest/California and has a long history as a manufacturer of ICs and memory products.

In the course of the time Western digital manufactured above all non removable disks, tape mechanisms, non removable disk and diskette CONTROLLERs, diagram chips and much other ICs. Meanwhile Western digital produces only OATH and SATA non removable disks in 3,5 ", 2.5 " and 1 " format. Among other things the fastest SATA non removable disk comes from Western digital: the RWS gate with 10.000U/min.

Firm history

1970er

The company was created on 23 April 1970 as a general digital and was first a manufacturer of test equipments for MOS semiconductors and became fast a specialized semiconductor manufacturer. In July 1971 they received to their current names and the company headquarters after new haven Beach/California were shifted. Short time came later with the UART WD1402A the first own product on the market.

During the 1970er WD its money earned and was years mainly with the sales of chips for pocket calculators 1975 the largest independent manufacturer of such chips. By the oil crisis and the bankruptcy the economic situation of the company worsened its largest customer Bowmar instrument dramatically, so that 1976 even insolvency had to be announced after Chapter 11. WD could free itself however from the awkward situation and brought with the MCP-1600 CCU and the WD1771 drive assembly CONTROLLER several milestones on the market.

1980er

Since beginning of the 80's WD manufactures hard disk controllers. Thus they supplied with about with the WD1003 to the CONTROLLERs for IBM the PC RK. This chip became 1986 the basis for the ATA interface, which developed WD as well as Compaq and the MPI department of control DATA (now belonging to Seagate).

With the purchase of the company Paradise of system, a diagram map manufacturer, one entered likewise 1986 into the diagram map market. Suitably one also own diagram chips developed. In addition one was in the chip sentence market (by the purchase of Faraday 1987) and in the network market active.

All these business fields ran well, but the main turnover supplier the CONTROLLER chips remained. Thus one brought with the WD33C93 the first single chip SCSI CONTROLLER to 1986 on the market, which "SEIZES" bus mast ring SCSI CONTROLLER WD7000 also for the first 16-Bit was used. 1987 came with the WD37C65 the first single chip CONTROLLER chip for PC/RK floppy disk drives, which is therefore called Urvater of the today's super I/O chip, on the market. Already 1988 followed with the WD42C22 "Vanilla" the first single chip ATA CONTROLLER.

With the assumption of the non removable disk section of Tandon 1988 the adjustment of WD changed drastically. Short time the Centaur was brought to non removable disks later on the market.

1990er

one sold Paradise of system to 1995 at Philips.

Present

one brought the first Mainstream non removable disks to 2001 with 8 MT Cache on the market. And 2003 with that RWS gate WDC360GD - a SATA drive assembly with 10.000 UpM and 36 GB memory) - non removable disk for Low Cost server and workstations presented, which, what concerns speed and reliability, lies in the range of clearly expensive SCSI drive assemblies.

Innovations

Western digital was responsible for some innovations, among other things:

• 1971: WD1402A, the first single chip UART
• 1976: WD1771, the first single chip floppy disk drive CONTROLLER
• 1981: WD1010, the first single chip ST-506 CONTROLLER
• 1983: WD1003 hard disk controller, forerunner of ATA
• 1986: ATA is developed together with Compaq and control DATA
• 1986: WD33C93, one of the first SCSI chips
• 1987: WD7000, the first bus mast ring ISA SCSI CONTROLLER
• 1987: WD37C65, the first single chip PC/AT floppy disk drive CONTROLLER
• 1988: WD42C22, the first single chip ATA hard disk controller
• 1990: The Caviar non removable disks were brought on the market
• 2001: The first Mainstream non removable disks with 8 MT Cache
• 2003: The first SATA drive assembly with 10.000 UpM
• 2004: Western digitally Media center, the first memory card reader combines with a non removable disk

Related links

• http://www.westerndigital.com/de/index.asp

Articles in category "Western digital"

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