Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

International Business Machines Corporation

Hitachi Global Storage Netherlands, B.v.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Seagate Technology International

Mike Suk

Donald Ray Gillis

Remmelt Pit

Walton Fong

Hideaki Tanaka

Masayuki Kurita

Shozo Saegusa

Toshiya Shiramatsu

David H Jen

Lee K Dorius

Kris Victor Schouterden

Norbert A Feliss

SungChang Lee

Vedantham Raman

Thomas R Albrecht

Erhard Theodor Schreck

John Thomas Contreras

Jeffrey Scott Lille

Bernhard E Knigge

Qing Dai

Nobumasa Nishiyama

William J Kozlovsky

Karl Arthur Flechsig

Xing-Cai Guo

Clinton David Snyder

Sanford A Bolasna

Gurinder P Singh

Reinhard Ferdinand Wolter

Yawshing Tang

Dan Saylor Kercher

Brian H Thornton

Richard Lindsay Stover

Toyomi Ohsawa

Owen R Melroy

Yumi Nagano

Bond-Yen Ting

Richard Mark Kroeker

SeungMo Kang

Ono Hiroyuki

Takashi Ikeda

Charles S Spencer, Jr

Mike L Ramirez

A method for planarizing a magnetic recording disk that has surface features of elevated lands and recessed grooves includes forming two coatings of cured perfluorinated polyether (PFPE) polymers over the surface features. The disk may have a protective carbon overcoat with a surface that replicates the topography of lands and grooves. A liquid functionalized-PFPE is applied over the disk surface and then cured to form a first coating with the functionalized end groups bonding to the carbon overcoat. A liquid non-functionalized-PFPE polymer is then applied over the functionalized-PFPE coating and cured to form a second coating. The combined coatings substantially planarize the disk surface so that there is minimal recession between the top of the coating over the lands and the top of the coating over the grooves.

Magnetic recording disk having pre-patterned surface features and planarized surface

This application discloses a hard disk drive and a control circuit that are configured to determine touchdown by determining the SAGC for a track, removing the repeatable component of the SAGC to create the non-repeatable component and determining an indication of clearance irregularity and/or touch down when the standard deviation of the non-repeatable component spikes. These operations may create a defect map and/or a Flying height On Demand (FOD) control table in or for the hard disk drive as products of operating the hard disk drive.

Detecting touch down and/or assessing quality in a hard disk drive

An apparatus and method for modifying a slider to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems. The method provides a suspension for reaching over a disk. A slider having a read/write head element on a trailing edge (TE) portion is also provided, the slider coupled with the suspension. In addition, an increased dynamic pitch of the slider is provided, the increased dynamic pitch increasing the height of a leading edge (LE) portion of the slider with respect to the disk and reducing the height of the TE portion of the slider with respect to the disk, wherein vertical motion of the TE portion does not collapse an air bearing provided by the LE of the slider flying above the disk.

Method and apparatus for modifying a dynamic pitch of a slider to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems

An apparatus and method for modifying the air bearing force of the trailing edge of a slider to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems. The method provides a suspension for reaching over a disk. A slider having a read/write head element on a trailing edge (TE) portion is also provided, the slider coupled with the suspension. In addition, a shaped TE which minimizes the air bearing force at the TE portion of the slider, to minimize the normal load and friction during contact to reduce slider bounce.

Method and apparatus for modifying the air bearing force of the trailing edge of a slider to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems

This application discloses a hard disk drive and operates it based upon using a first and third harmonic amplitude generated from reading a repeated pattern of bits written to a track on a disk surface. Both amplitudes are used to create a first data set and the third harmonic amplitude is used as a single tone to create a second data set. A conversion factor between these two is determine, which may be used to convert the first data set under other conditions into a temperature insensitive table of the electrical stimulus of a vertical micro-actuator and the flying height change of the slider. The hard disk drive may be calibrated during manufacture and/or in the field.

Method and apparatus for estimating flying height in a hard disk drive

A method for creating a disk drive. A slider is installed in a disk drive having at least one unlubricated disk. The slider is designed to be in initial contact. The slider is burnished to the final design point. A vapor phase lubricant reservoir system is installed in the drive either before or after the burnishing step.

Method for efficient slider burnishing during drive build

A method for controlling a burnish cycle to minimize cycle time is disclosed. MR sensor resistance measurements are used to monitor interference with the recording surface and when clearance is not detected, steps are taken to fine tune the interference signal.

Method for controlling a burnish cycle to minimize cycle time

A method and apparatus for predicting write failure resulting from flying height modulation and initiating re-writing of data upon occurrence of the predicted write failure is disclosed. According to the present invention, if the slider or transducer flying height modulates during the write process, such modulation is detected, and a rewrite of the same data is forced. A write reassign may be initiated when a thermal signal exceeding the predetermined threshold is detected during the rewrite and/or a read/verify may be initiated after the rewrite.

Method and apparatus for predicting write failure resulting from flying height modulation

Embodiment of the invention improve the productivity of a magnetic disk drive that controls the flying height of a magnetic head by use of a heater. According to an embodiment, in a method for manufacturing a magnetic disk drive that writes/reads information to/from a magnetic disk medium by use of a magnetic head including a heater adapted to control the flying height, the read and write performance of the magnetic head is tested; a heating condition used at the time of heating by the heater is determined on the basis of the test results; and a control parameter that specifies the amount of heating by the heater in the determined heating condition is determined.

Magnetic disk drive with heater to control flying height and manufacturing method thereof

A system and method for preventing crosstalk noise from being superimposed on a read signal due to noise from a heater line for a slider in a recording disk drive is disclosed. A heater line pair to the slider is not grounded but is in a floating state with respect to an actuator support structure. A heater driver allows a heater current to flow between a positive power supply voltage and a negative power supply voltage. The heater line pair is not grounded, so an impedance is high as viewed from a magnetic disk. Thus, it is possible to effectively suppress a noise transmitted from the magnetic disk and read signal quality is kept from deteriorating due to the crosstalk from the heater line.

Recording disk drive with reduced noise thermal flyheight control

A method and system for a beam projector having data manipulation capabilities. The beam projector includes a central processing unit integral with the beam projector, a memory portion coupled with the central processing unit and a signal-receiving portion coupled with the central processing unit. The signal-receiving portion for receiving data and providing the data to the central processing unit such that the central processing unit of the beam projector organizes the data into a viewable presentation without requiring input from a secondary computing device.

Method and system for a beam projector having data manipulation capabilities

An apparatus and method for reducing a suspension gram load to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems. The method provides a suspension for reaching over a disk. A slider having a read/write head element on a trailing edge (TE) portion is also provided, the slider coupled with the suspension. In addition, a gram load of the suspension is reduced to minimize the friction force during contact of the TE with the disk such that when the TE portion of the slider contacts the disk the bouncing motion of the TE with respect to the disk is reduced.

Method and apparatus for reducing a suspension gram load to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems

An apparatus and method for utilizing an off-center gimbal to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems. The method provides a suspension for reaching over a disk. A slider having a read/write head element on a trailing edge (TE) portion is also provided, the slider coupled with the suspension. In addition, an off-center gimbal device is coupled with the slider and the suspension away from the center of the slider and closer to the TE portion of the slider such that when the TE portion of the slider contacts a disk a bouncing motion of the TE with respect to the disk is reduced.

Method and apparatus for utilizing an off-center gimbal to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems

A method for predicting the failure of a data storage device having a slider heater is disclosed. For slider heaters exhibiting a decreasing resistance aging characteristic, a failure warning is produced when heater resistance suddenly increases 2 to 5%, or dR/dt changes sign from negative to positive. For slider heaters exhibiting an increasing resistance aging characteristic, a failure warning is produced when the heater resistance suddenly drops 2 to 5%, or dR/dt changes sign from positive to negative. Additionally, random changes in heater resistance exceeding nominal measurement error may also be utilized to produce a failure warning. This method provides advance warning of potential data read/write errors well before the open circuit failure of the slider heater occurs.

Predictive failure analysis of thermal flying height control system and method

A method and system for a beam projector having an audio capability device. The beam projector includes a central processing unit integral with the beam projector, a memory portion coupled with the central processing unit and an audio recognition portion coupled with the central processing unit. In so doing, the audio recognition portion is used for recognizing audible commands for the beam projector.

Method and system for a beam projector having an audio capability device

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Mike Suk