Hard disks are very important storage devices that are used not only in personal computers but also in various industries.
Li Zetian thought that he planned to remind Seagate to develop magnetoresistive head technology. The magnetoresistive benefit was discovered more than 100 years ago, but has not been practically applied because the magnetoresistance rate of change of the material is too small. At present, vacuum technology has improved the material's magnetoresistance material purity and obtained a higher magnetoresistance change rate. The magnetoresistance effect is enough to be used in magnetic core memory, which can increase the hard disk capacity by more than 40%!
After Li Zetian visited Mango Computer, he could not wait to go straight to Seagate.
Seagate was originally a subsidiary of Apple, headed by the "father of disks" Alan Shugart, but later the company split and became independent from Apple.
For Li Zetian's arrival, Alan Shugart was very surprised, because Li Zetian rarely came to Seagate.
Li Zetian came once a few years ago when Seagate was developing CD technology.
Alan Shugart invited Li Zetian to the office. After the two sat down, Alan Shugart said, "Mr. Li, what would you like to drink?"
"A glass of water is enough." Li Zetian smiled.
Alan Shugart greeted the secretary to pour a glass of water over, and then turned to look at Li Zetian, "Mr. Li, you must have something very important to come here this time?"
"That's right!" Li Zetian nodded and said, "Alan Shugart, I want to know, is Seagate researching magnetoresistive head technology?"
Alan Shugart shook his head.
Li Zetian thought to himself, sure enough, although the Seagate company in the previous life also had the "father of disks", the early leader in hard disk drives has always been IBM.
"Then let's study the MR technology of the magnetoresistive head! As we all know, based on the magnetoresistive effect, its resistance changes with the change of the magnetic field. If the magnetoresistive element is connected to a very sensitive amplifier, the tiny resistance can be measured. The data on the platter can be read by using the resistance value to change with the magnetic field, so that higher storage density can be achieved!”
Alan Shugart's eyes lit up after hearing what Li Zetian said.
"Why didn't I think of using the magnetoresistive effect!!!" Alan Shugart looked at Li Zetian and couldn't help but said, "Mr. Li, although you are not a hardware developer, your vision is really shocking. People admire! If Seagate can develop the magnetoresistive thorn head MR technology, it will be able to greatly increase the storage capacity of the hard disk and make the hard disk smaller!"
Li Zetian smiled lightly and said, "I read a scientific literature on the magnetoresistance effect a few days ago, and suddenly thought that if the magnetoresistance effect is applied to the hard disk, it should be very promising!"
Not only is it promising, it is a milestone in the field of hard disk development! ! !
Alan Shugart understands very well that Seagate will dominate the hard disk market if it can really develop MR technology for magnetoresistive heads!
"By the way, Alan Shugart, is Seagate still developing DVDs?"
Li Zetian asked, since the CD development was completed, he had mentioned to Alan Shugart to develop DVD.
"Yes, Mr. Li, Seagate is also developing DVD, but it can't be completed in a short time. First, we need to improve video encoding technology, and second, we need to improve hardware."
"In terms of video coding technology, MPEG-1 appeared, which is a video and audio compression format customized for CD media, but DVD and CD are in the same line and can also be applied to DVD. A 70-minute CD has a transfer rate of about 1.4 Mbps, MPEG-1 uses block-based motion compensation, discrete cosine transform (DCT), quantization and other technologies to optimize the transmission rate of 1.2Mbps."
Li Zetian nodded, knowing that MPEG-1 was adopted by Video CD as the core technology, that is, the core technology of VCD. With the current technical conditions, VCD can be produced completely.
"Do you want to develop VCD now?"
Li Zetian suddenly fell into contemplation. The resolution of VCD is only about 352×240, and it uses a fixed bit rate. Therefore, when playing fast-moving videos, due to insufficient data, macroblocks cannot be fully adjusted during compression, resulting in poor video images. Blurred squares appear. In addition, the output quality of MPEG-1 is about the same as that of traditional video recorder VCR, which is also the reason why VCD has not been successful in developed countries. However, developing countries, such as China, are in great need. It's just that China is not very rich now, and only a few people can afford a TV, let alone a VCD...
"Just take it easy!"
Li Zetian shook his head secretly, then immediately looked up at Alan Shugart and said, "Alan Shugart, please continue."
Just now, Alan Shugart stopped when he saw that Li Zetian was lost in thought.
"Okay, Mr. Li," Alan Shugart continued, "MPEG-1 audio is divided into three layers, yer1, yer2 and yer3, and the upper layers are compatible with the lower layers, and the third layer protocol is called yer3... "
Alan Shugart gave Li Zetian a very detailed introduction to the differences and main uses of these three layers.
Li Zetian's expression changed. After the third layer protocol of MPEG-1 is not n, MP3 can be developed to replace it. However, MPEG-1 technology is certainly not perfect at the moment.
"It's almost like this in terms of video encoding. In terms of hard drives, our initial idea is to develop single-sided, double-layer high-density multimedia CDs."
When Li Zetian heard the words, he was stunned for a moment. If a single CD is not enough, it would be too perfunctory to make up the number!
"Is this feasible?" Li Zetian asked a little unsure.
"It should work!" Alan Shugart said confidently.
However, Li Zetian still shook his head in his heart, feeling that Seagate is still lacking in background, especially in the field of laser technology, which is a bit far behind Japanese companies such as Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic.
"Alan Shugart, I think that using laser technology to accommodate more capacity in the same recording area may have more development prospects!" Li Zetian suggested.
Alan Shugart thought about it seriously and nodded, "Your suggestion, we will consider it carefully!"
"Ah That's good!"
Li Zetian took a sip of water, then stood up and said goodbye to Alan Shugart.
After walking out of Seagate, Li Zetian thought to himself, Seagate seems to be unable to fight alone, and must work with other companies to produce DVD standards. What kind of single-sided, double-layer, high-density multimedia CD sounds very uneasy... Past life The most popular are Blu-ray discs, this is the direction of DVD development!
After getting into the car, Li Zetian said to Dongfang Yuqin, who was sitting beside him: "Let me check which company is currently at the top level in the laser field!!"
"OK!"