AutoPartsAsia | OCTOBER 2017 | 25to respond to that trend. In the
laptop and desktop space, we
saw flash replacing the hard
drive fairly fast, especially in
the corporate sector. We focus
on these progressive trends
and act accordingly.
Q: What is the market share
Western Digital has in
storage space in the world?
A: Western Digital leads the
market with a share of 41.4
percent in hard drive-based
storage. In India, our figures
are published by some of the
market research agencies for
consumer storage, not on the
OEM side. It is fairly large in
most of the categories.
Q: What are the highpoints in your
operations and where do you think
your focus needs attention?
A: One area I would have said a few
years back would be industrial and
automotive because I saw good
growth there. The other high point is,
in automotive and industrial sectors,
the customer expects more longevity.
Our traditional DNA has been more in
the consumer type of markets but with
constant innovation we can cater to a
wider area; that’s what gets you ahead
of the competition.
Q: What are your key market
segments?
A: It is retail and consumer, which is
big for us, in India and globally. The
next would be the Smartphone space
followed by the ‘Connected home’
segment comprising set-top boxes,
smart TVs, storage, etc. all related
to video storage at home. The video
surveillance segment is fast growing
for hard drive storage and we have
specific hard drives for its application.
These are the major market segments
where we are performing very well,
followed by the automotive sector
which is a new focus segment.
Q: How do you ensure the security
of data?
A: Presently we are a sub-system
storage provider; we leave the security
aspect to final product manufacturers.
However, in certain cases where SD
cards have secure content and you
don’t want their content copied, we
provide ‘host lock’ feature where we
can lock the SD card with the host
user. So when an SD card is fitted
into an infotainment unit and that unit
becomes the host processor for the
SD card, we have a feature where we
can lock this card to work only with the
host. This is a new feature released
about nine months ago to ensure
security in our storage devices; it has
recently been added to OEM type
products.Q: How do you ensure reliability
and quality of products as they
process and handle a huge
quantum of data?A: We have huge variants of products
and accordingly test, qualify and
certify them.Q: Operating conditions are
different in the automotive
industry. Are your products so
versatile as to manage all these
issues?
A: I think our embedded flash memory
is quite rugged and does not get
affected negatively by any of these
characteristics, as these are soldered
with PCB-like components. Nowadays,
the embedded flash package is
designed in such a way that only 17
pins are required to connect the CPU.
The memory package is designed
with more than 100 pins. These pins
are provided for stability and vibration.
On the embedded side, it is well
taken care of by the entire industry
standardising the EMMC package.
On the card side there are connectors
for cards that suit the automotive
environment; people have to ensure
they use these connectors.Q: Lots of vendors to the
automotive industry have been
on a buying spree, acquiring IT/
software companies. Is there any
collaboration by WDC with hard-
core automotive suppliers?
A: Western Digital has been involved
in the automotive industry traditionally.
SanDisk, independently, has been
with the automotive industry forboth the Tier-1 suppliers and
OEMs; together we continue
to focus on this market. Today,
autonomous vehicles and
electric-vehicles are more
compute, data and storage
oriented. We, therefore, see a
mega trend in the increasing
role of storage for cars.Q: What is the role of
the Indian operations in
technological development?A: Indian operations have
played a very significant role
in technological development.
We have over 1,000 R&D
engineers in Bengaluru. We
are planning to expand by
including hard-drive related work too.
If you look at the SanDisk consumer
flash storage - retail grade consumer
flash storage - very significant part of
the work worldwide happens out of
Bengaluru. This is one company that
does software, hardware, curate, and
testing, from Bengaluru.
Manufacturing happens in Shanghai,
Penang, Malaysia and Japan. Those
are the hubs for flash storage. For
WDC, there are manufacturing
locations in the US, Thailand,
Malaysia, and different regions of Asia.Q: What are the synergies you
see?
A: Synergy is one - all are chasing
storage. WDC is traditionally a
leader in laptop, desktop, gaming,
and client grade hard-drive based
storage. Hitachi GST has always
focused on data centre grade very
high reliability hard-drive storage
and some flash storage. SanDisk
is a flash manufacturer semi-
conductor company that makes
storage products. Based on last
year’s revenue, it is the single, largest
storage company in the world.Q: Can you share your plans for
expansion?
A: We are expanding into segments
like hard-disk drive and archival
storage solutions.Q: What is your association with
the Indian OEMs, automotive
OEMs, or automotive suppliers?
A: We are currently working with
automotive Tier-1 companies. Some of
them are consuming our flash in their
infotainment systems going to both
Indian and multinational auto OEMs. I
think these engagements will keep on
growing and we will be continuously
involved.