BANGALORE: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies today announced its Shenzhen-based production facility has shipped its 10 millionth China-made media for the worldwide hard disk drive (HDD) market.

Media is the key technology of the hard drive upon which electronic data is written in the data recording process.

Hitachi announced in August 2003 that it would invest several hundred million dollars to enable its Shenzhen facility to manufacture media, making it the largest HDD industry investor in the region and the first to establish a media manufacturing plant in China. In January 2005, Hitachi became the first HDD supplier to manufacture and ship China-made media for the worldwide HDD market. This represented a significant step toward realizing the company's vision for China to align its capabilities to better support customers.

"The achievement of the 10 millionth shipment demonstrates the strength of our technology and the success of the worldwide media team within Hitachi GST," said Dennis Rourk, General Manager, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. "Reliability tests have shown that media made in our Shenzhen facility perform extremely well, with performance and quality meeting the highest standards of Hitachi GST and comparing favorably with world-class media."

Hitachi has been performing on-the-job staff training for media manufacturing, with a total of more than 40,000 cumulative hours completed, in addition to the introduction and installation of equipment. These efforts contribute to achieving the highest standards in the production line.