Seagate Technology Incorporated

Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

He Huang

Zine-Eddine Boutaghou

Mark James Schaenzer

Lei Zhang

Ling Wang

Bruce Frederick Blumentritt

Merle E Thowe

Sidney Y Xue

An improved disc head for increased wear protection. The disc head includes wear members , formed proximate to transducer elements of a thin film head. The wear members are formed along a portion of a lower surface of the head facing the disc surface and are formed of a relatively hard material for increasing wear resistance of the head, proximate to the transducer elements

Disc head with contact protection feature

Disk spacers in multiple disk drives are shaped to provide a reliable mechanism for loading and unloading magnetic recording heads and a reliable latch when the heads are unloaded. The head load/unload system operates between a stack of latch-profiled spacer ramps sandwiching magnetic hard disks and a stack of lifting arms with contoured tips attached to head/suspension assemblies. The lifting arms and their contoured tips are built as part of the one-piece of the suspension load beams at their inner diameter side perpendicular to the load beam axis, or at their front along the axis. The spacer ramps are precisely machined to a latch profile with a desired rounded edge merging with the disk surface, an inclined slope, a round hump and a rounded recess, so that the contoured tip of a lifting arm can slide onto the slope first, over the hump and then into the recess where the tip is latched. The spacer ramps also serve either in a couple as the separator of any two adjacent disks, or individually as the separator between the top disk clamp and the top surface of the top disk and between the bottom base and the bottom disk. The spacer ramps are self-calibrated vertically with the disk stack. Both coated with diamond like carbon or other hard coatings, the profiled spacer ramps, also coated with lubricants after a hard coating, and contoured tips are reliable in ramp wear control. A single sided limiter from the suspension load beam reduces the torsion to the head flexure tang generated by the lifting force at an inner side lifting arm when the head is unloaded from the disk.

Disk drive having an I.D. ramp loading system employing multiple-function spacer structure

A data storage system head slider and a method of making the same. The head slider includes a slider body and an accelerometer formed integrally with the slider body. In preferred embodiments, the accelerometer includes a cavity-formed in the slider body. A structural beam extends over the cavity such that the structural beam deflects in response to acceleration of the head slider. A piezo transducer formed on the structural beam provides a transducer output signal indicative of a magnitude of the acceleration of the head slider.

Method of fabricating a data storage system head slider having an

A magnetic recording head for use in a disc drive system including a rotating disc has a slider body and a transducer on the slider body for reading and/or writing data from and/or to the disc. A piezoelectric sensor is provided on the slider body and produces a signal representing a level of interference between the slider body and the rotating disc. A method of predicting a head crash includes establishing a nominal level of interference between the magnetic recording head and the rotating disc and establishing a threshold interference level difference. The level of interference between the magnetic recording head and the rotating disc represented by the signal provided by the piezoelectric sensor is monitored during operation of the disc drive system. A predicted head crash is indicated when the level of interference between the magnetic recording head and the rotating disc is different from the nominal level of interference by more than the threshold.

Magnetic recording head slider with piezoelectric sensor for measuring

An actuator assembly in a disc drive includes a track accessing arm, a load beam and a slider. A proximal end of the load beam is mounted to the track accessing arm and a distal end of the load beam carries the slider proximate to a rotatable data storage disc. The load beam transmits a load force to the slider in the direction of the data storage disc. A support beam extends from the track accessing arm and supports a load force reducer between the support arm and the load beam. The load force reducer is operatively coupled between the support beam and the load beam for reducing the load force during take-off and landing of the slider relative to the disc surface.

Disc drive having gram load reducer and method of operating gram load

A data storage system head slider and a method of making the same are disclosed. The head slider includes a slider body and an accelerometer formed integrally with the slider body. In preferred embodiments, the accelerometer includes a cavity formed in the slider body. A structural beam extends over the cavity such that the structural beam deflects in response to acceleration of the head slider. A piezo transducer formed on the structural beam provides a transducer output signal indicative of a magnitude of the acceleration of the head slider.

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Eden Prairie, MN, United States of America

He Huang