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The eBearing News
October 29, 2003
NTN and Nidec Will Triple Disk Drive
Bearing Production in China
copyright © 2003 eBearing Inc.
NTN Corporation (Japan) and Nidec Corporation (Japan) said they will invest an additional USD $18 million
in their just-completed joint venture factory in China to meet exploding demand for their fluid dynamic bearings
used in computer disk drives.
Another $1.8 million investment will be made by NTN to upgrade an existing factory in Thailand, and $9.2 million
will go to expand another fluid dynamic bearing component plant in Japan.
Nidec is also investing in its own standalone facilities for fluid film bearings, $200 million in Zhejiang, and
expects to employ 10,000 workers there by 2004.
The Chinese joint venture plant, NTN-Nidec Zhejiang Corporation, is 60% owned by NTN and 40% owned by Nidec.
The added $18 million investment is expected to triple the
plant's current capacity to more than 6 million fluid dynamic
bearings per month. Both companies were caught by surprise that the plant has only just opened
and already demand exceeds its lifetime planned capacity of 5 million units per month.
NTN-Nidec Zhejiang is unique in that it produces motors engineered and designed to use NTN's proprietary sintered
metals technology. At the time, an NTN spokesman said the decision to build in China was made for them;
their major customers have shifted disk drive production to China at an unexpectedly rapid rate. NTN and
Nidec had no choice but to follow, citing lower procurement and operating costs, along with the need
to be physically closer to their customers.
The plant was announced in July 2002 and only came online in early 2003.
• article: NTN and Nidec building joint-venture fluid bearing plant in China
Currently, the high-demand segment is for 3.5-inch disk drive components such as used in desktop computers
and video systems. By mid-2004, however, the companies said they expect production to shift to components
for 2.5-inch disk drives, used in portable computers, appliances, portable music systems such as
Apple's iPod, and other small consumer electronics.
The newest generation of computer disk drives uses spindle motors with fluid film or hydrodynamic bearings
for improved performance over the previous generation of ball bearings. NTN was a key vendor of miniature
precision ball bearings for disk drives, a market now all but gone.
• article: an introduction to fluid film bearings for disk drive motors
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- by Bruce A. Carr
from individual research,
tips and commercial sources.
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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Entire contents Copyright 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright © 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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