Western Digital's Cadaver blamed on chip firm

The withdrawal of over 400,000 Western Digital Caviar (Cadaver) hard drives last month have been blamed on defective chips supplied by ST Microelectronics. According to newswire Bloomberg, ST Microelectronics is now attempting to repair the damage by supplying chips for the hard drive which actually work. However, there is no word of how much the withdrawal of the 6.8Gb drives has cost WD in terms of production cost, nor the potential damage to the disk drive maker's image. ST Microelectronics can expect to pay through the nose after the admission that its chips were the cause. The drives were withdrawn after tests showed that their life expectancy was likely to be less than expected. ®