Xidex Lays Off 400 Employees at Its Disk Plant in Santa Clara

The Indiana-based computer products company that closed a Xidex Corp. plant in Irvine last month, laying off 825, cut another 400 Xidex employees Thursday in Santa Clara.

Workers at both plants made hard disks, which are permanently mounted in personal computers and store information.

Sales of disks have been slumping, and Xidex customers--the manufacturers of disk drives for computers--have cancelled millions of dollars worth of orders.

Xidex, a leading manufacturer of such disks, was acquired this year by Anacomp Inc., which said in a statement Thursday that Xidex had already planned to lay off employees at its disk drive plants before the acquisition in order to concentrate on more profitable businesses.