FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SCION PHOTONICS ACQUIRES OPTICAL SYSTEMS CORPORATION TO ACCELERATE ENTRY INTO 
AUTOMATED HIGH VOLUME FIBER OPTICS MANUFACTURING

FREMONT, CA - January 9,  2001 -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT)  today announced that their optical component subsidiary, Scion Photonics, Inc., has acquired Optical Systems Corporation (OSC) for an undisclosed sum. OSC, based in Valencia, California, is a maker of precision automated tooling for the fiber optics component manufacturing industry. All OSC employees will be joining Scion and will continue to work out of the Valencia, California facility. Dr. Venkatesan Murali, Scion�s chief operating officer, said �this acquisition clearly accelerates Scion�s roadmap for the delivery of quality optical products in high volume to our customers. In addition, it also gives Scion a tremendous advantage, especially in the contract manufacturing space, of quickly and seamlessly integrating customized automation tooling into our precision assembly processes.� Bill McBain, formerly OSC�s chief executive officer and now vice president of Scion�s Assembly Automation and Contract Manufacturing Division, added that �the skill sets of OSC and Scion are very complimentary. From an automation standpoint, the opportunity to participate in the architecture of optical component designs will enable Scion to implement design-for-automation concepts very early in the product design cycle. This will greatly enhance Scion�s ability to rapidly drive productivity and yield improvements.� As part of Scion Photonics, this new division will continue to sell automation tooling to other optical component manufacturers. Added Dr. Murali, �we expect this acquisition will favorably impact Scion�s revenue growth during the coming year � both in terms of third party equipment sales and by accelerating Scion�s own high volume production of its products.� 

Read-Rite Corporation is one of the world's leading independent manufacturers of magnetic recording heads, head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies (HSAs) for disk drives and tape drives.  The company is headquartered in Fremont, California and has operations in California, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.  The company's website is located at http://www.readrite.com.  Read-Rite is also the majority shareholder of Scion Photonics, Inc. which designs, develops, manufactures and sells optical communication components.  Scion's website is located at http://www.scionphotonics.com.

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