Western Digital Caviar 80 MB (model number WDAC280-32), from a series of HDDs for desktop PCs it is a 3.5-inch HDD mounted onto a 5.25-inch adapter bracket.īy 1991, things were starting to slow down, as the PC industry moved from ST-506 and ESDI drives to ATA and SCSI, and thus were buying fewer hard disk controller boards. That year, Western Digital bought the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker Tandon the first products of that union under Western Digital's own name were the "Centaur" series of ATA and XT attachment drives. In 1986, they introduced the WD33C93 single-chip SCSI interface, which was used in the first 16-bit bus mastering SCSI host adapter, the WD7000 "FASST" in 1987 they introduced the WD37C65, a single-chip implementation of the PC/AT's floppy disk controller circuitry, and the grandfather of modern super I/O chips in 1988 they introduced the WD42C22 "Vanilla", the first single-chip ATA hard disk controller.ġ988 also brought what would be the biggest change in Western Digital's history. They did well (especially Paradise, which produced one of the best VGA cards of the era), but storage-related chips and disk controllers were their biggest money makers. in 1987), SCSI controller chips for disk and tape devices (by purchasing ADSI in 1986), networking ( WD8003, WD8013 Ethernet and WD8003S StarLAN). These included graphics cards (through its Paradise subsidiary, purchased 1986, which became Western Digital Imaging), core logic chipsets (by purchasing Faraday Electronics Inc. As a result, Western Digital purchased a number of hardware companies. Much of the mid-to-late 1980s saw an effort by Western Digital to use the profits from their ATA storage controllers to become a general-purpose OEM hardware supplier for the PC industry. Western Digital Paradise VGA card, 8-bit ISA bus, circa 1989 Throughout most of the 1980s, the family of controllers based on the WD1003 provided the bulk of Western Digital's revenues and profits, and for a time generated enormous corporate growth. That controller, the WD1003, became the basis of the ATA interface (which Western Digital developed along with Compaq and Control Data Corporation's MPI division, now owned by Seagate Technology), starting in 1986. The FD1771 and its kin were Western Digital's first entry into the data storage industry by the early 1980s, they were making hard disk drive controllers, and in 1983, they won the contract to provide IBM with controllers for the PC/AT. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Western's forward integration was the FD1771, one of the first single-chip floppy disk drive formatter/controllers, which could replace significant amounts of TTL logic. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DEC's LSI-11 system and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III and UCSD Pascal. Western Digital introduced several products during the late 1970s, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. In 1973, Western Digital established its Malaysian plant, initially to manufacture semiconductors. Chuck Missler joined Western Digital as chairman and chief executive in June 1977, and became the largest shareholder of Western Digital. After this, Emerson Electric withdrew their support of the company. The oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the WD1402A UART.ĭuring the early 1970s, the company focused on making and selling calculator chips, and by 1975, Western Digital was the largest independent calculator chip maker in the world. It rapidly became a specialty semiconductor maker, with start-up capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric. It was originally based in Santa Ana, California, and would go on to become one of the largest technology firms headquartered in Orange County. Phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially a manufacturer of MOS test equipment. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970, by Alvin B. JSTOR ( January 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This section needs additional citations for verification.
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