 Hitachi Microdrive - Mikey
"Mikey" is expected to make his debut in the second half of 2005 at a mere 14 grams and in an embedded-only design. The new Microdrive baby in the Hitachi family represent a novel approach to the hard drive industry's continuing quest for high capacity in smaller and smaller form factors. Hitachi is retaining the one-inch size for maximum capacity, but trimming the package footprint for greater agility.
Hitachi Microdrive - high capacities
"Hitachi believes the fundamental benefit of the hard drive is its ability to offer the best value at high capacities - and that’s even clearer today in the consumer environment," said Bill Healy, senior vice president, product strategy and marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "We developed ?Mikey’ in a way that doesn’t compromise that value, but rather gives consumers more of what they want."
Hitachi Microdrive - Smallest, Biggest One-Inch Micro Drive
"Mikey" will be the industry’s smallest one-inch hard drive with the highest storage capacity, between 8-10 GB. With a physical dimension of 40 x 30 x 5 mm, it is designed for the smallest handheld devices with needs for ample, yet, affordable storage. In addition, through an integrated chipset, "Mikey" will enable up to a 40-percent reduction in power consumption over the existing Microdrive product.
Hitachi Microdrive - ZIF connector
"Mikey" is being tailored for the CE industry and will employ a new ZIF connector, which has been traditionally used by CE device manufacturers for ease of integration. In addition, the ZIF connector on Hitachi ’s new drive may also result in lower design and integration costs and greater reliability for device manufacturers.
Hitachi Microdrive - Shock protection
Because the applications for which "Mikey" is intended are highly portable devices, Hitachi has provided for additional methods of shock protection beyond the drive's internal mechanisms, which will offer more than a 100-percent operating-shock improvement over the current Microdrive product. Hitachi has also designed "snubbers" or drive bumpers that could be mounted around "Mikey" to supply additional shock protection.
Hitachi Microdrive - Incomparable knowledge
With more than five years of experience and five million one-inch microdrives under its belt, Hitachi has gained incomparable knowledge in manufacturing a reliable design in high volume that has been successfully field-tested in a variety of consumer electronic devices. This is made possible by an established supplier base, a highly-efficient manufacturing process and a meticulous quality-assurance procedure.
Hitachi Microdrive - CE-ATA interface
"Mikey" is expected to be compliant with the CE-ATA interface, which is now being defined by an Intel-led consortium, of which Hitachi is a founding member. The consortium is working to develop an interface that is tailored to the needs of handheld and portable consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and MP3 players. Other interface standards are also expected to be supported, depending on customer requirements.
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Hitachi unveils one-inch 8GB and 10GB Microdrive : Hitachi Global Storage Technologies will christen a smaller one-inch Microdrive product later this year. This miniature microdrive is designed to meet the accelerating demand for ultra-portable handheld devices - such as mobile phones and digital music players - that don't compromise on storage capacity. Hitachi will deliver on these requirements by re-engineering its world-renowned one-inch Microdrive to create a 20-percent smaller version with the highest capacity at 8-10 gigabytes (GB) of storage. The new smaller Microdrive from Hitachi is affectionately called baby "Mikey" for its diminutive size. 
