Abstract
An automation solution for production testing of disk drives makes extensive use of machine vision - both as a system development tool and as integral part of the solution. Disk drive manufacturing is not a business for fainthearts, or slowcoaches. In less than two decades the number of drives shipped rose from 8 million to over 200 million; the price per megabyte of storage space fell from over $11 to less than $0.01; and transfer rates of 625 kilobytes/ second for your 1986 desktop drive seem strangely sad compared to the 320 megabytes/second on offer today. In a growth industry based on short product life cycles, manufacturers need exceptionally aggressive product development to survive. This means translating lab research into saleable product fast, while ensuring reliability, and it all adds up to fierce competition: 159 hard, floppy and optical disk drive manufacturers of fifteen years ago had slimmed down to just 68 by 2001. But there are opportunities for those who are innovative, well-equipped and brave enough to stake a development budget on delivering benefits to these hard pressed disk dynamos. Storage and network technology specialists Xyratex decided to invest in advanced automation.
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