Maxtor Corporation

International Business Machines Corporation

Wd Media, LLC

Steven E Lambert

James K Howard

Andreas Moser

Richard H Ahlert

Harold H Gee

Dragos I Mircea

Ian L Sanders

Hai Chi Nguy

Ara Patapoutian

Daniele Mauri

Bruce Alvin Gurney

Stuart Stephen Parkin

Michael Anthony Moser

Michael D Leis

Michael I Mallary

Virgil S Speriosu

Bill Richard Baker

Dennis R Wilhoit

Bernard Dieny

Steven B Marshall

Nelson Cheng

George H Bellesis

Caleb Kai-Lo Chang

Steven E Stupp

Bill Edward Higgins

Jong Ming Lin

Nelson Shih-Cheng Cheng

Tue Thanh Ngo

Shu-Yu Sun

Douglas N Bartholomew

Systems and methods for improving the accuracy of test measurements involving aggressor tracks written to the disks are provided. One such method involves erasing a circumferential band of a disk, writing a central track on the circumferential band, measuring and storing a first track profile of the central track, writing an aggressor track on each side of the central track at a preselected aggressor track offset from the central track, measuring and storing a track profile of the aggressor tracks at the preselected aggressor track offset, measuring and storing a second track profile of the central track, performing the prior actions exactly n times where n is greater than or equal to 1, determining an estimated distance between the aggressor tracks based on the respective track profiles, determining a selected measurement using the estimated distance between the aggressor tracks, and the first and second track profiles of the central track.

Systems and methods for improving accuracy of test measurements involving aggressor tracks written to disks of hard disk drives

Systems and methods for improving accuracy of head positioning using existing servo patterns are provided. In one embodiment, a method for improving read head positioning is provided that comprises: writing a series of tracks over a range of read offsets to be calibrated; measuring a set of raw track profiles from the series of tracks; sampling the set of raw track profiles at a series of signal amplitude levels; constructing a reference track profile from the set of sampled track profiles; calculating a set of read offset deltas from each sampled track profile; merging the sets of read offset deltas into a set of average read offset deltas; and converting the set of average read offset deltas into a read offset correction table. A similar method for improving disk write head positioning is also provided which utilizes such a read offset correction table to eventually create write offset correction table.

System and method for improving head positioning

Monitoring of the eccentricity of a pre-formatted servo pattern on a disk.

Eccentricity determination for a disk

Demagnetizing magnetic media for recording data in a data storage device includes placing the magnetic media in a magnetic field at a first strength, and gradually reducing the magnetic field to a second strength to essentially eliminate net magnetization in the magnetic media.

Demagnetization of magnetic media for data storage device using gradually reduced magnetic field

An apparatus and method for increasing the data storage capacity of a data storage devicehaving media surfaces. One or more of a linear density of data, a track density of data, or an error code level of data, is selected for a portionof a media surface. Data is recorded on the portionof the media surfaceat the selected linear density, track density, or error code level. Thereafter, the recorded data is read and an error rate of the recorded data is derived, directly or indirectly. The derived error rate is compared to an acceptable error rate, and if the derived error rate is greater than the acceptable error rate, the previous steps are repeated for another linear density, track density, or error code level, until the derived error rate is less than or equal to the acceptable error rate, to provide a recordable linear density, track density, or error code level of data for the media surface

Method and apparatus for selecting storage capacity of data storage media

A method of controlling bias supply sources for magneto-resistive transducer (MR) heads to provide essentially the same predetermined lifetime for the MR heads, by determining dependence of head lifetime on bias supply level and on head stripe temperature, and setting a bias supply level for each head based on said dependence of lifetime on bias supply level and on head temperature, to provide essentially the same predetermined lifetime for the heads.

Method and apparatus for setting magneto resistive head bias current in disk drive for desired head lifetime

A method and apparatus for determining a lifetime for a medium to fail due to thermal decay of a magnetization pattern is provided. Different stress magnetic fields are applied to a write head for writing to a machine-readable medium resulting in a magnetic field on the medium. A time to failure, corresponding to each of the different stress magnetic fields, is determined, the time to failure being an amount of time for an amplitude of a signal on the medium to degrade beyond a predetermined failure criteria. A time to failure without a stress magnetic field is determined based on the corresponding times to failure determined for each of the different stress currents.

Method for determining lifetime for media thermal decay

A coarse magnetic template pattern is transferred to a data storage surface of a disk by magnetic printing techniques. As printed, the template pattern essentially provides clocking and may provide radial position information. The disk is then assembled into a completed and enclosed disk drive. The template pattern is then used by the disk drive to self-write highly resolved product embedded servo patterns onto storage surfaces of each data disk including the surface having the printed template pattern.

Self-writing of servo patterns based on printed reference pattern in rotating disk drive

An improved CoPt based or CoNi based alloy magnetic recording disk for horizontal recording has a magnetic recording layer which is a laminated structure of relatively thin magnetic alloy films separated by relatively thin non-magnetic spacer films. The resulting laminated disk structure has substantially decreased intrinsic media noise at high linear recording densities. A magnetic recording disk drive uses the low noise laminated disk and and a magnetoresistive read sensor to provide a disk drive with significantly reduced noise in the data readback signal.

Magnetic recording disk, magnetoresistive read head, inductive write

A magnetoresistive (MR) sensor comprising a first and a second thin film layer of a magnetic material separated by a thin film layer of a non-magnetic metallic material. The first ferromagnetic layer is magnetically soft. The magnetization direction of the first layer of magnetic material is set substantially perpendicular to the magnetization of the second layer of magnetic material at zero applied field, and the magnetization direction of the second layer of magnetic material is fixed. A current flow is produced through the MR sensor, and the variations in voltage across the MR sensor are sensed due to changes in resistance of the MR sensor produced by rotation of the magnetization in the first layer of magnetic material as a function of the magnetic field being sensed. The variation of the resistance with the angle between the magnetizations of the first and second layers of magnetic material has been defined as the spin valve (SV) effect. It is also shown that, by a suitable direction of the current with respect to the fixed magnetization, the (SV) magnetoresistance can be added constructively to the usual anisotropic magnetoresistance.

Magnetoresistive sensor based on the spin valve effect

In the fabrication of thi film cobalt alloy magnetic recording disks by sputter-deposition, the coercivity of the disks can be selectively varied by introducing a predetermined amount of hydrocarbon gas, such as methane, into the argon-based sputtering atmosphere. The flow rate of the hydrocarbon gas into the sputtering chamber is directly related to the coercivity of the resulting disks. This permits the coercivity of the disks to be controlled without the necessity of changing the composition of the cobalt alloy sputtering targets, and without the necessity of changing the thickness of an underlying between the disk substrate and the magnetic layer. The use of hydrocarbon gas in the reactive sputtering of the cobalt alloy magnetic layer in the disks does not affect the intrinsic media noise of the disks, thus allowing for the manufacturing of disks with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the readback signal.

Process for fabricating thin film metal alloy magnetic recording disks

An improved CoPt based or CoNi based alloy magnetic recording disk for horizontal recording has a magnetic recording layer which is a laminated structure of relatively thin magnetic alloy films separated by relatively thin non-magnetic spacer films. The resulting laminated disk structure has substantially decreased intrinsic media noise at high linear recording densities.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Steven E Lambert