Page 10 - ASME ISPS 2016 Program

Mon. 6/6/16
ISPS Banquet Distinguished Speaker

Flip time and room to match pg 17 format and put
ROOM AND TIME on the same line

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2016
SedonaRoomR 6:30pm–9:30pm 9

*Tickets are required and can be purchased at the registration desk for $50

“The Superb Hard Disk Drive”
Roger Wood
The humble Hard Disk Drive (HDD) contains such exquisite technologies and operates at such
Fellow astounding precision as to defy belief. Yet, our HDD industry churns out these devices by the
Western Digital hundreds of millions and sells them for a few tens of dollars each. This talk will fi rst highlight the
remarkable achievements incorporated in today’s HDDs. These achievements include the
exotic technologies employed in the writing and reading elements, the robust head-disk
interface at Angstrom level clearance, the ultra-precise servo-mechanical control of positioning
in all three axes, and the complex signal-processing algorithms used to detect very noisy data.
Because the areal-density capability of conventional magnetic recording has reached a limit,
there are intense research and development activities on a variety of new recording approach-
es for the next generation for drives. These go by various strange acronyms: HAMR, MAMR,
BPMR, TDMR, HDMR, etc. The new technologies will be briefl y described. However, the main
emphasis of the talk will be the interaction and dependencies between these new recording
technologies and the signal-processing techniques and the servo-mechanical systems.

Biography: Dr. Roger Wood hails originally from the UK and holds degrees from London
University and the University of British Columbia. He is currently an HGST Fellow with Western
Digital in San Jose, California. Dr. Wood has a long history in the Magnetic Recording industry
starting at Ampex in 1979, moving to IBM in 1986, to Hitachi in 2003, and to HGST/WDC in 2012.
In 1996, he enjoyed a year at the Data Storage Institute, Singapore. In 2003-2004, he was
fortunate to take an assignment in Odawara, Japan. At Ampex, Dr. Wood was the inspiration
behind the introduction of the fi rst PRML channel. At Hitachi, he led the advanced development
eff ort on perpendicular recording. Dr. Wood is perhaps best known for predicting that conven-
tional magnetic recording would be limited to about 1 Tbit/in2. To extend magnetic recording on
conventional granular media, he proposed ‘TDMR’, an approach now being actively pursued by
the industry. Dr. Wood’s interests include magnetism, magnetic recording, signal-processing, and
mechanical dynamics. He holds 27 US patents and is an author on over 90 journal papers. Dr.
Wood is an IEEE Fellow and was the recipient of the 2009 Magnetics Society Achievement Award.

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ISPS/IOT/IPW Program-june16r4.indd 10 6/9/16 2:08 PM