Toshiba Corp. and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. (TAIS) aquired the Panasonic Shikoku Electronics' HDD design center in Fremont, Calif. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The newly acquired design center will support HDD development at Toshiba's Ome operations in Japan. In addition, Toshiba's new facility will provide engineering support to PC and consumer electronics companies, putting critical resources closer to Toshiba customers.

"Toshiba is determined to continue its leadership in small form factor HDDs and to provide customers around the world with excellent engineering resources," said Kazuyoshi Yamamori, vice president of Toshiba's Digital Media Network Co. "Acquisition of the design center will support our continued innovation and product advances."

As part of the deal, approximately 50 engineers have joined TAIS, bringing a rich mix of engineering and problem-solving skills and proven product design capabilities for low-cost, high-quality, high-volume production.

"Acquisition of this design center greatly bolsters our global engineering organization and represents Toshiba's commitment to driving innovation in small form factor hard disk drives," said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager, Storage Device Division (SDD) of TAIS. "We are adding world-class engineering resources to help Toshiba get closer to our customers in the United States, while greatly enhancing our global product development capabilities."

Toshiba continues to push the envelope in small form factor HDD development, with introduction of the world's smallest hard disk drive at 0.85 inches and the first announced products to incorporate perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) on the company's 1.8-inch HDD platform, scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2005. Toshiba currently leads the 1.8-inch HDD market with more than 14 million units shipped since its launch in 2000. The company also recently surpassed the 80 million units shipped milestone for 2.5-inch HDDs.

"Toshiba's reputation as a technology innovator brings tremendous opportunity to our organization," said Raghu Gururangan, vice president of the Fremont engineering facility. "Our team is thrilled to join this world-class operation, and our mission is to help bolster customer satisfaction with Toshiba's industry-leading HDD products."