Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

International Business Machines Corporation

Hgst Netherlands, B.v.

Apple Inc.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Gurinder P Singh

Peter Michael Baumgart

Timothy C O'Sullivan

Thomas R Albrecht

John Thomas Contreras

Chih-Kung Lee

Bernhard E Knigge

Satya Prakash Arya

Lee K Dorius

Karl Arthur Flechsig

Francis Chee-Shuen Lee

Douglas J Krajnovich

Pantelis Alexopoulos

Pantelis S Alexopoulos

Hardayal Singh Gill

Robert Fontana

Myron Dale Flickner

Luiz M Franca-Neto

Mike Suk

Lidu Huang

Timothy Carl Strand

William J Kozlovsky

Charles Allan Brown

Samir Y Garzon

Robert Nolan Payne

Herman Russell Wendt

Xiaoyu Sui

Jia-Yang Juang

Iraj Kavosh

Stephen Arnold Olson

Russell Dean Moates

Jorge Rubio

Richard Kroeker

Eric Gordon Baugh

Tim Strand

A method of operating a device is disclosed. The method includes attempting communication between the device and a separate connecting device. The attempt utilizes a first resistance and determines whether communication is able to occur at a higher speed mode or lower speed mode. If communication is able to occur at the higher speed mode, using the first resistance, communication continues at the higher speed mode. If communication is not able to occur at the higher speed mode, another attempt through a second resistance is tried. The method again includes determining whether communication is able to occur at the higher speed mode through the second resistance. If communication is able to occur at the higher speed mode through the second resistance, communication continues at the higher speed mode. If communication is not able to occur at the higher speed mode, communication stays at the lower speed mode.

Systems and methods for recovering higher speed communication between devices

Approaches for a hard-disk drive (HDD) comprising a head slider comprising a thermoelectric embedded contact sensor. The thermoelectric embedded contact sensor may comprise a first and second conductive lead and a metallic component. The metallic component has a different Seebeck coefficient than the first and second conductive leads. A thermoelectric voltage across the metallic component is used to measure the distance between a head slider and a magnetic-recording disk without supplying an electrical current from a hard-disk drive to either of the first conductive lead or the second conductive lead.

Thermoelectric voltage-based differential contact sensor

A device for detecting disk asperities. The device includes an optical glide head. The glide head is not required to physically contact a disk for detection of the disk asperities. The optical glide head includes a waveguide configured to transmit light onto the disk and receive reflected light from the disk.

Contactless optical glide head using at least two concurrent interference signals and a multi-channel light detector for detecting disk asperities

Methods and apparatus for the calibration and use of test glide head gimbal assemblies are disclosed. Calibration is performed by pulse laser adjustment of the flexure mounted to the glide head, while the head is flying above a media test disk having asperities of known dimensions. The calibration process normalizes the fly heights of glide heads used to measure defects on both upper and lower surfaces of disk drive media, allowing upper and lower surfaces to be scanned simultaneously.

Dynamic test glide head calibration using laser adjustment

A magnetic write head arranged to maximize efficiency of an optical device used to locally heat a magnetic medium during use, also to maximize efficiency of a heater element for thermal fly height control. The magnetic head is constructed with a read head, a write head and a slider body. The write head is located between the read head and the slider body. A heater element can be located between the read head and the write head and an optical device such as an optical waveguide can be located between the write head and the slider body. The write head can be constructed to have a write pole that is closer to the slider body than the return pole is, thereby allowing the write pole to be adjacent to the optical device.

Thermally assisted magnetic head

A system according to one embodiment includes a thin film stack having a magnetic transducer and a contact pad; and a heater in the thin film stack for inducing thermal protrusion of a media-facing side of the thin film stack, wherein the thin film stack is characterized by the contact pad protruding farther than the magnetic transducer upon the thin film stack being heated by the heater. A method for calibrating a protrusion of a magnetic head includes increasing a thermal protrusion of a magnetic head to induce head-medium contact; determining that the head has contacted the medium, wherein a portion of the head that contacts the medium is a contact pad or overcoat of the contact pad; determining parameters for inducing a desired amount of protrusion based in part on the determination that the head has contacted the medium; and storing the parameters.

System for controlling contact location during TFC touchdown and methods thereof

A method of swaging a head gimbal assembly (HGA) to an actuator arm comprises positioning a tubular element on the HGA adjacent a hole in the actuator arm; restraining the subassembly; providing a rod formed from a shape memory alloy (SMA), the SMA having a martensitic phase at a low temperature and an austenitic phase above a phase transition temperature that is higher than the low temperature, the rod having an initial diameter that is smaller than diameters of the tubular element and the hole; extending the rod through the tubular element and hole; heating the rod above the phase transition temperature such that the rod expands to a second diameter that is greater than the initial diameter to plastically deform the HGA and swage together the HGA and actuator arm to form an assembly; cooling the rod and removing the rod from the assembly such that the rod returns to the initial diameter.

Method for joining components with shape memory alloys

In a method of pre-contact detection and active damping of air bearing vibrations in a hard disk drive, a slider is isolated from ground. The slider is then capacitively coupled with a hard disk of the hard disk drive via a thermal fly-height control (TFC) heating element. An alternating current (AC) signal is applied to the slider via the TFC heating element to control the amplitude of the slider.

Method and system for pre-contact detection and active damping of air bearing vibrations in a hard disk drive

The present invention provides a non-actuatable, self-limiting wear contact pad slider and method for making the same. A protruding element surrounding the transducer is fabricated using a third etch step so that the protruding element has a height that is greater than or equal to the designed fly height of the aerodynamic lift surface minus the disk roughness.

Self-limiting wear contact pad slider and method for making the same

The head of a disk drive has write elements disposed on one protrusion pad that wears away during initial operation to permit reduced tolerances and, thus, reduced spacing between the disk and head, with the read element being disposed on a separate protrusion pad and spaced from the write element pad in the radial dimension. This prevents read element recession during cooling in the absence of write current that could otherwise occur if the read element were located on the same pad as the write head.

Disk drive head with radially spaced read and write elements on respective protrusion pads

A magnetic recording disk drive has self-limiting wear contact type air-bearing sliders that support the read/write heads. The magnetic elements of the read/write head extend into and are surrounded by a wearable pad that protrudes beyond the air-bearing surface of the slider. The end of the protrusion pad and the ends of the magnetic elements are covered by a corrosion-resistant overcoat that protects the magnetic elements during slider fabrication and disk drive assembly. The overcoated protrusion pad sliders are assembled into the disk drive in a special environment, typically air with humidity controlled below a level above which corrosion of the magnetic elements would occur. The drive is then hermetically sealed and the drive is operated with the protrusion pads in contact with the disks until the overcoats and a portion of the pads are worn or burnished away. The combination of protrusion pad air bearing sliders with a hermetically sealed disk drive in a controlled atmosphere, and the burnishing of the head overcoat either after the drive has been sealed or under controlled humidity conditions prior to sealing, allows for a very low magnetic spacing to be achieved in manufacturable disk drives.

Magnetic recording disk drive with self-limiting wearable contact pad air-bearing slider in hermetically sealed environment

A method and tool for measurement of the roll static attitude and y-misalignment of magnetic recording sliders within the head stack assembly having reference elements placed on the deposited end of the magnetic recording slider, which are optically analyzed by a video camera connected to a computer. For fast measurement the head stack assembly is clamped in a fixture mounted on motorized stages, which move each slider into the measurement position. In a two step imaging and analyzing process, the orientation and location of one or more edges of the reference element are computed and compared with known control parameters.

Method and tool for measurement of roll static attitude of sliders in a magnetic recording head stack assembly

A lift tab for a load/unload type of data storage hard drive and a method of smoothing the lift tab. The method includes the step of striking the lift tab with short duration (e.g. 10-500 nanosecond) energy pulses to melt a thin surface layer of the lift tab. The melted layer flows under surface tension forces, smoothing out bumps and scratches. The melted layer quickly refreezes, forming an exceptionally smooth melted and refrozen spot. Preferably, the melted and refrozen spot is 0.2-10 microns deep. More preferably, the melted and refrozen spot is in the range of 1.0 to 3.0 microns thick. The lift tab can have a large number of melted and refrozen spots. The size of the melted and refrozen spots is practically limited by power available from energy sources such as lasers. Preferably, the melted and refrozen spots are at least several tens of microns in diameter. The present invention includes lift tabs having melted and refrozen spots. Also, the present invention includes head gimbal assemblies and hard drives having lift tabs with melted and refrozen spots.

Melting and refreezing method for smothing and load/unloading lift tab for disk drive smoothed lift tab and gimbal assembly and data storage device incorporating smoothed lift tab

An apparatus and method for automatically adjusting the gram load and static attitude in a head suspension assembly comprising one or more lasers, a fiber optic switch, a measurement apparatus and a computer control means. The fiber optic switch includes a plurality of fiber optic lines which direct the output of the laser to well-defined regions on the suspensions in a disk drive. Irradiation of the suspension by the laser causes a load change which alters the static attitude change in the slider. In the method of the present invention, the initial gram load or static attitude is measured by the measurement apparatus and the control means calculates how much energy is required to cause the change needed to achieve the desired condition. Other information, such as the type of laser to be used is also specified by the control means. The laser then delivers output to the suspension through the fiber optic line having an angled end and the static attitude or gram load is remeasured to determine if additional adjustment is required.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Gurinder P Singh