Ilika plc Materials development grant for Hard Disk Drives (7921V)
02 February 2017 - 7:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMIKA
RNS Number : 7921V
Ilika plc
02 February 2017
Ilika plc
("Ilika" or the "Company")
Materials development grant for Hard Disk Drives
Ilika (AIM: IKA), a pioneer in materials innovation and
solid-state battery technology, announces that it has received a
notification from Innovate UK of its intent to award Ilika and
Seagate Technology plc ("Seagate") an 18-month project grant of
GBP575,995 to further develop photonic materials and processes for
Hard Disk Drive ("HDD") technology, of which GBP365,698 will be
used to fund project activities at Ilika.
Seagate is the market leader in magnetic recording used in HDD
technology and this grant builds on the relationship between Ilika
and Seagate to develop HDD technology announced on 25 February
2016. It is also one of the three grant awards referred to in the
announcement dated 23 November 2016.
Demand for data storage is expected to grow by over 40% in the
next three years, in part as a result of the movement to cloud
storage. Most of the world's digital information is and will
continue to be stored on hard drives. Innovation in the read-write
transducer, from which information is recorded and read, is
critical to increased hard drive data capacity and read/write
speeds. Today, Seagate estimates that 25% of the world's
transducers are manufactured in the UK giving Ilika and Seagate a
unique opportunity to collaborate on this project to meet growing
demand for this complex nano-engineered component. This project
will deliver a process for photonic material development with
improved data capacity using engineered materials to enable Heat
Assisted Magnetic Recording ("HAMR"). Photonic materials,
engineered with new process methods, will boost performance and
reliability for HAMR hard drives, decreasing time to market.
Commenting on this grant award, Graeme Purdy, Ilika CEO, said:
"Ilika welcomes this opportunity to extend our successful
collaboration with Seagate. Seagate's state-of the-art wafer
processing capability is a perfect complement to Ilika's high
throughput materials innovation platform."
For more information contact:
Ilika plc www.ilika.com
Graeme Purdy, Chief Tel: 023 8011 1400
Executive
Steve Boydell, Finance
Director
Numis Securities Limited Tel: 020 7260 1000
Oliver Cardigan/ Paul
Gillam /
James Black
Walbrook PR Ltd Tel: 020 7933 8780 / ilika@walbrookpr.com
Paul Cornelius Mob: 07866 384 707
Lianne Cawthorne Mob: 07584 391 303
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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