Brown Disc Gets Going

The data storage business is a pretty nasty one these days--several hundred storage product makers have gone out of business in the last five years, and big boys like Irvine-based Western Digital Corp. control most of the market.

Executives at Brown Disc Products Inc. in Santa Ana saw the handwriting and earlier this year decided to get out of their money-losing memory product manufacturing business. The company now is beginning to make the special quartz glass that is essential to the semiconductor industry. It is a heat tolerant product used to insulate semiconductors, which in turn are the backbone of the electronics industry.

“The fabricated quartz products market is expected to exceed $1 billion by 2001,” said David Lopes, Brown Disc’s chairman and chief executive. “Most of the market now is controlled by foreign firms that have acquired American firms in recent years. This is an opportunity for an American company to come back and capture a dominant position in the market.”

Part of the switch involves a name change, and Brown Disc plans to become the Quartz Group after its June 2 shareholder meeting.

The other part, completed last week, involved construction of a $100,000 clean room at the Brown Disc plant in Santa Ana.

Lopes expects to hire about 40 people over the next six months to operate the Santa Ana glassmaking facility, where the quartz glass will be made under tightly controlled conditions.

Brown Disc has already hired several new managers to help its transition from memory devices to quartz glass products.

John O’Dell can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at [email protected]