User:MaryGaulke/sandbox/Western Digital History

1970s
Alvin B. Phillips founded Western Digital in 1970 as General Digital. The company initially manufactured computer chips, particularly calculator chips, with start-up capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric. One year later, the company adopted its current name and introduced the WD1402A, the first single-chip universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART). Later that decade, the company debuted a 4K RAM chip.

In 1975, Bowmar Instruments, Western Digital's main calculator chip customer, filed for bankruptcy; Western Digital in turn declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1976. The company reorganized and reemerged in 1978.

Western Digital introduced several products during the late 1970s, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement Digital Equipment Corporation's LSI-11 system. The processor was also used in several single-chip floppy disk drive controller chips, including notably the FD1771.

1980s
In the early 1980s, the company began making hard disk drive controllers. Kathryn Braun became the head of the company's storage products unit in 1982 and has been credited with driving tremendous growth of the division over the following 15 years, increasing its income from $15 million to more than $2 billion. In 1983, engineers at the company created a prototype in just two weeks of a controller for the IBM PC/AT. The PC/AT controller debuted the next year as the first Winchester hard drive controller card. Subsequently, the company shifted its focus to creating components for the growing market of personal computers. In 1985, the company created the first Enhanced Small Device Interface controller board, which enabled PCs to use faster hard drives with larger capacities. Storage controller products generated almost 90 percent of the company's income in that year.

In the later part of the decade, Western Digital worked to position itself as an OEM hardware supplier and purchased several hardware companies. These included graphics cards (through its Paradise subsidiary, purchased 1986, which became Western Digital Imaging), core logic chip sets (by purchasing Faraday Electronics in 1987), and controller chips for disk and tape devices (by purchasing Adaptive Data Systems Inc. in 1986).

In 1987, Western Digital announced it would buy the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker Tandon in order to broaden further Western Digital's range of PC equipment products. The company joined the Fortune 500 the next year and signed a lease in preparation for its move to Irvine, California, in 1990.

1990s


In 1990, Western Digital debuted its first 3.5-inch Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drive in its Caviar line. Three years later, the company progressed to "Enhanced IDE", which exceeded 528MB-throughput and allowed users to attach optical and tape drives to the unit.

Despite the success of the Caviar line, the company struggled during this period, as did the computing industry in general. During a 15-month period in 1990 and 1991, the company lost $172 million and downsized some properties and staff. Four of the six major disk-drive manufacturers also reported losses during this time.

Charles A. Haggerty, an executive at IBM, became the company's president in 1992; he later became CEO. In 1998, Braun, the highest-paid female executive in Orange County, retired as the company's president and chief operating officer.

Also in 1998, Western Digital started a new partnership with IBM. This agreement gave Western Digital the rights to use certain IBM technologies, including giant magneto-resistive (GMR) heads.

2000s


In 2003, Western Digital acquired most of the assets of bankrupt, formerly market-leading magnetic hard drive read-write head developer Read-Rite Corporation. Within seven months, the acquisition added to the company's earnings, nine months ahead of schedule. In the same year, Western Digital offered the first 10,000 rpm Serial ATA HDD, the Raptor, with a capacity of 37 GB. While the company designed the Raptor for enterprise applications, it also became popular with gamers. The Raptor X followed in 2006, with a capacity of 150 GB and a transparent window showing its inner hardware.

In 2006, Western Digital introduced its My Book line of mass market external hard drives that feature a compact book-like design. Later additions increased its capacity to 1 TB and then 2 TB.

In 2007, Western Digital acquired thin-film media maker Komag. Also in the same year, the company announced it had created a hard drive with a record-setting density of 520 GB per square inch with the use of perpendicular recording and tunneling magneto-resistive technology. Western Digital also started to produce the energy-efficient Green Power (GP) range of drives.



In 2008, Western Digital announced a new generation of its 10,000 rpm SATA WD Raptor series of hard drives. The new drives, called WD VelociRaptor, featured 300 GB capacity and 2.5 in platters enclosed in the IcePack, a 3.5 in mounting frame with a built-in heat sink.

In 2009, Western Digital shipped the first 2 TB internal hard disk drive. A few months later, the company entered the solid-state drive market with the acquisition of SiliconSystems. A few months after that, the company announced the first 1 TB mobile hard disk drive.

In October 2009, Western Digital announced the shipment of the first 3 TB internal hard disk drive, which has 750 GB-per-platter density with SATA interface.