Quantum Corporation

Philip W Rich

Maziar Amirkiai

Ali Hosseinzadeh

Joshua Lindsay

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

A bistable magnetic/electromagnetic latch sub-assembly for releasably latching a disk file actuator in order to park data transducer heads at a predetermined location of a data storage disk rotatably mounted to a base within a fixed disk data storage subsystem, comprises a mounting flange for mounting to the base in operative proximity to the disk file actuator, a latch body rotatably mounted to the mounting flange, the latch body including a permanent magnet and an actuator engagement latch. Plural detent pins extend from the mounting flange and limit rotational displacement of the latch body. The pins coact with the permanent magnet to hold the latch body at a release detent position and also to hold the latch body at an armed detent position wherein the actuator engagement latch is positioned to engage and latch the actuator. An electrical coil is fixed to the mounting flange in operative proximity to the permanent magnet and generates latch position switching fluxes for switching the latch body between the armed detent position and the release detent position in accordance with the direction of an intermittent actuation current flow.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Philip W Rich