Arthur Devine, ScD, a professional tool and die maker
branched out on his own in 1969 to start Magnetic Arts Corporation.
It wasn't long before his reputation in precision grinding and innovations
in magnetic head manufacturing landed several exclusive orders for glass
bonded cores for recording heads used in tape and hard drives. In the
years that followed he developed a plethora of processes for grinding,
slicing, polishing and glass bonding essential to volume production
of these cores.
By 1975 fifty employees were turning out 50,000 head
cores per week. As the disk drive technology evolved, Magnetic Arts
matched each new requirement, producing cores that enabled the highest
recording density available at the time.
In 1989 the technology was sold to Impremis Division
of Control Data Corp. (Later Seagate Technology). Doctor Devine
formed Advanced Recording Technologies, Inc. (A-R-T), and embarked on
the use of laser technology to align and reduce the track width of recording
heads. The laser technology was incorporated into the manufacturing
of precision tape recording heads to be used by Digital Equipment Corp.
A-R-T then readapted the name Magnetic Arts as a Division
that distributed magnets and ferrites. In addition to selling a large
variety of industrial magnets and ferrites, this division developed
a magnetic health product line, consisting of magnetic beads, clasps
for healthy jewelry, and a therapeutic patch (Mag Patch™).
Precision Laser Micromachining soon became the main
focus of Advanced Recording Technologies. The marriage of precision
grinding, lapping and laser micromachining gained a unique niche for
A-R-T in the micro fabrication technology field.
The skills that enabled the precision laser micromachining
were applied to other products, resulting in an automated orifice cutter
for the Honeywell Corp., a precision micromachining station which automatically
trimmed track widths to 20 Micro-inches accuracy and a precision mask
cutter now used for the Gemini 8 Meter telescope in Hawaii.
The development of a device to detect the act of Graffiti
spawned a new Corporation called Traptec. This device is currently undergoing
field test evaluation.
In 1999 Arthur Devine was awarded a Doctor of Science
degree honoring his work in metallurgical and vitreous bonding for metal-in-gap
recording heads. This achievement helped make possible the present
gigabyte storage capacities of magnetic disk drives.
Some of the side developments at A-R-T were an electric
power generator that operated on low grade land fill methane gas, a
flue gas separator that removed contaminants from flue gas by using
the nucleation of water vapor (patent granted), various ferrite/glass
bonding processes and the fabrication of laser processed diamond burnishing
surfaces.
A-R-T has had a number of contracts and consulting
relationships over the years involving major corporations. These
include Hughes Aircraft, Digital Equipment, National Cash Register,
Control Data, Seagate Technologies, Ampex, Applied Magnetics, National
Micronetics, Phasemetrics, Ventrica Inc., Spin Physics, Iomega and Sperry
Univac.
