With the opening of its HDD Advanced Technology Center (with TDK and SDK) to develop higher density recording technology and the HDD Manufacturing Technology Center (with TDK and likely its partner SAE) to develop manufacturing capabilities, on July 16, 2011, Toshiba is taking clear steps to maintain its technological relevance and ability to remain a competitor in the HDD industry.

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The conference included many papers on various aspects and issues in energy assisted magnetic recording (HAMR is one version of this) as well as a technology called shingled magnetic recording where magnetic recorded tracks are written offset from each other giving a higher track density and thus more storage capacity.

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