Lucent Technologies Introduces Motor Controller Integrated Circuit for Hard Disk Drives; Marks Company's Entry Into Market Segment.

Business/Technology Editors

ALLENTOWN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2000

-- Joins Lucent's line of hard drive electronics for optimized

performance, increased integration, "one-stop shopping"

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) Microelectronics Group today introduced a high-performance, full-featured motor controller integrated circuit (IC) for high- end hard disk drives (HDDs), marking the company's entry into the motor controller market. The new IC joins Lucent's existing line of hard drive electronics - read-channel ICs, preamplifiers and controller circuitry - allowing the company to offer increased levels of integration in the electronic components used in HDD manufacture, as well as to offer "one-stop shopping."

The VC2010 motor controller is targeted at disk drives that operate at 15-thousand revolutions per minute, and is capable of supporting speeds up to 20-thousand revolutions per minute. Such disk drives are deployed in high-end PCs and workstations, Internet servers, and emerging networked storage arrangements such as storage area networks (SANs). The VC2010 controls the spindle motor, which rotates and regulates the speed of disk drive platters, and the voice coil actuator, which positions the read/write heads over the data tracks on the platters.

The new IC was designed by engineers at the company's Twin Cities Business and Technology Center in Bloomington, Minn. Lucent established the center earlier this year when it acquired the products and the design, marketing and sales teams of VTC Inc., which focused on analog semiconductors for the hard drive industry.

"Hard drive manufacturers are under relentless pressure to increase the storage capacity and performance of their drives while bringing them to market faster and at competitive prices," said Mark Granahan, general manager of the Analog Products Business in Lucent's Microelectronics Group. "That puts pressure on component suppliers to deliver more value. Not only is our new motor controller a competitive offering in its own right, but by having a full line of hard drive electronics under one roof, we can provide synergies and higher levels of integration - with the convenience of one-stop shopping."

The VC2010 features an integrated voice-coil motor (VCM) compensation loop, enabling on-chip capability to program error compensation. It has a switched capacitor VCM compensation filter that reduces off-chip component count and provides industry-leading common mode rejection of more than 80 dB at direct current (DC) and greater than 75dB at 25 kilohertz (kHz). The power amplifier can operate in either Class AB or Class B mode.

The chip also has a programmable sinusoidal spindle drive for optimized acoustic performance up to 20-thousand RPM. The spindle control section provides six-state motor commutation using a phase-locked loop (PLL) and provides transconductance current control through a 10-bit digital-analog converter (DAC), with four ranges.

The chip, designed to support a variety of system voltage requirements, includes a minus-five-volt programmable negative switching regulator, a 3.3-volt switching regulator, and two additional programmable positive regulators.

Sample quantities of the device are available now, with production quantities slated for the first quarter of 2001. Unit pricing will be US$5 in quantities of 1,000.

For more product information, customers send e-mail requests to [e-mail]. Customers may also call the Microelectronics Group Customer Response Center at 800-372- 2447 from the USA, 800-553-2448 from Canada, or [phone] from all other countries and ask for department N62.

Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group is the world leader in semiconductors for communications applications. Lucent has announced it will spin off the Microelectronics Group as an independent company that will include its optoelectronics and integrated circuits divisions. The spin-off, slated for completion by the summer of 2001, will create the only major stand-alone semiconductor company that can offer end-to-end networking solutions that address the convergence of photonics and electronics based on leadership in both integrated circuits and optoelectronic components. The new company will also provide wireless computer networking system solutions through its ORiNOCO(tm) product line. More information about the Microelectronics Group is available from its web site at http://www.lucent.com/micro.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as broadband and mobile Internet infrastructure; communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.