Nihon Micro Coating is to build a new factory to make polishing liquid (polishing slurry) for glass substrate hard disks (HD) and CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) pads. The move is aimed at fulfill…
Nihon Micro Coating is to build a new factory to make polishing liquid (polishing slurry) for glass substrate hard disks (HD) and CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) pads. The move is aimed at fulfilling demand from Japanese and overseas HD drive and semiconductor device manufacturers. The company will soon take a formal decision while following market developments closely, and plans to start work by the end of 2004. Until now, texture processing (micro-processing in order to increase storage capacity) was carried out on the surface of aluminum substrates as the capacity of HDs increased, but this processing was not required for glass substrates. However, HD makers are increasingly employing texture processing on glass substrates in an attempt to reduce HD size while increasing their capacity. In response to this development, Nihon Micro Coating independently developed a polishing slurry which could be used in direct texture processing of glass substrates, and was supplying products as well as consumables. Nihon Micro Coating is reportedly the only company in the world to produce a slurry which can be used in direct texture processing for glass substrates. Some 10% of Nihon Micro Coating“s slurry output in the last fiscal year was for aluminum substrates and 90% for glass substrates, but slurry for glass substrates is expected to increase even more in the future. This prompted the company to build a new factory to fulfill growing demand.