Quantum Corporation

Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Maxtor Corporation

Ali Hosseinzadeh

Maziar Amirkiai

Ken L Chang

David Ross Pace

Tzong-Shii Pan

Dennis W Hogg

Stanley Yen Wong

Shufun Ho

Alex Y Tsay

Philip W Rich

Naoki Yamasaki

Oliver W Northrup

Takayuki Noma

Chee Shu Tay

A novel head stack assembly (HSA) includes a flex cable with a first side and an opposing second side, and having a hole therethrough. The HSA also includes a head gimbal assembly (HGA) having a load beam, a laminated flexure attached to the load beam, and a head attached to the laminated flexure. The laminated flexure includes a flexure tail with a snap-through feature. The snap-through feature has a plurality of windows in the flexure tail, a snap-through feature central portion that is centric to the plurality of windows, and a plurality of lobes. Each lobe extends out from the snap-through feature central portion radially into one of the plurality of windows. The laminated flexure overlies and contacts the flex cable on its first side, but the snap-through feature is disposed through the hole so that each of the plurality of lobes contacts the flex cable on its second side.

Head stack assembly with a laminated flexure having a snap-through feature

A semiconductor die mounted to a flex cable is provided. The flex cable comprises a heat sink layer and a flex cable substrate having conductive traces disposed thereon. The flex cable substrate includes an aperture aligned with the semiconductor die. A thermal conductor disposed within the aperture contacts both the semiconductor die and the heat sink layer. The thermal conductor can comprise, for example, a set of solder balls.

Thermal dissipation from a flip chip through an aperture in a flex cable

A height reduced rotary voice coil actuator assembly includes an E-block defining one or more vertically aligned short tines. Fastened to each short tine are one or two elongated tine extenders. The tine extender-short tine connection occurs outside the region above and below the data storage disks. A peg-leg load beam having tabs adapted to receive wires having no protective plastic tubing is connected to each tine extender. The wires are bonded directly to the tabs and provide electrical communication between data transducer heads located on the load beam and drive electronics. A swage boss formed in the tine extender faces outwardly in the same direction as a data transducer head assembly supported by the peg-leg load beam. Each short tine is substantially coplanar with an associated data storage disk and lies beyond the outer periphery thereof. The resulting in-line rotary actuator achieves substantial vertical or Z height compaction.

Disk drive with low profile head suspension assemblies

Disk drive with low profile suspension assemblies

A hard disk drive includes a spindle motor flex circuit having a connection end secured to a drive base at a location established by a reference feature and an actuator flex circuit having a connection end also secured to the base at the location established by the feature; a cover and cover gasket mounted to the base plate enclose and seal a rotating data storage disk, a disk spindle motor, a magnet structure, a rotary actuator assembly and the flex circuits except for the spindle motor connection end and the actuator connection end; and, a printed circuit board carrying drive electronics has a connector array of pressure pins aligned to contact facing connecting pads of the flex circuits, the connector array having an alignment pin for registering with the reference feature of the base plate as the printed circuit board is mounted to the base plate externally of the cover, thereby establishing electrical connections between the printed circuit board and the flex circuit connection pads. This arrangement results in an in-line circuit board and a low-profile disk drive, lending itself to simplified assembly by manufacturing robots.

Low profile disk drive architecture with in-line circuit board and flex

The present invention relates, in one aspect, to an apparatus for positioning a disk drive head over a disk which is a part of a disk drive assembly. A disk drive apparatus includes a base plate, a disk coupled to the base plate, a disk drive head assembly arranged over the disk, and an actuator assembly that is arranged to position the disk drive head assembly over the disk. The actuator assembly is coupled to the disk drive head assembly, and includes a ferrite piece and a crash stop contact point that is separate from the ferrite piece. The disk drive apparatus also includes a magnetic latching assembly which has a plate extension that is substantially stationary with respect to the disk, a magnet nest that is movably mounted over the plate extension, and a latch magnet that is coupled to the magnet nest. A crash stop, which is also included in the disk drive apparatus, is arranged to be contacted by the crash stop contact point when the disk drive head assembly is positioned in a parking position.

Method and apparatus for latching an actuator assembly to prevent damage

A flexible circuit assembly to provide communication to and from data transducer heads located on a load beam of a suspension assembly of a disk drive. Two discrete preamplifier integrated circuits, one of which has a pin-out that is a mirror image of the other, are mounted on a flexible circuit substrate such that the mirror image preamplifier integrated circuit mounted thereon folds underneath the first preamplifier integrated circuit. A head-arm access strip of the flexible circuit is installed in a distorted S-shaped bow in order to reduce the force on the suspension assembly.

Flexible preamplifier integrated circuit assemblies and method

A toggling, dual state magnetic latch is provided for a disk file rotary head positioner rotatably mounted relative to the base and includes a voice coil for rotary displacement within a magnetic field provided by an actuator voice coil permanent magnet. The latch comprises a latch pin formed of a ferromagnetic material located on an arm extending from the voice coil of the actuator; a latch mounting pivot pin mounted to the base, a latch body rotatably mounted to the latch mounting pivot pin and positionable between an unlatched position and a latched position, the latch body including a toggle portion carrying a latch permanent magnet and including a counterweight portion located generally oppositely of the toggle portion for carrying counterweight for counterweighting the latch body about an axis of rotation aligned with the latch mounting pivot pin, a bias force mechanism including the voice coil permanent magnet for applying a predetermined bias force to the latch body in order to maintain it at the unlatched position, the latch body and the latch pin being so located that as the latch pin moves in a direction toward the latch body and reaches a predetermined distance to the latch permanent magnet, the bias force is rapidly overcome, and the latch body toggles to a latched position such that the latch pin is directly adjacent to the latch permanent magnet when the actuator has positioned the data transducer head at a landing zone on the storage disk.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Ali Hosseinzadeh