Disk drive actuator components made of composite material including

Abstract

A disk drive system includes a base, a disk rotatably attached to the base, and an actuator assembly movably attached to the base. The actuator assembly moves the transducer to selected areas of the disk where information representative of data is to be written or read. The actuator assembly maintains the transducer in a transducing relationship with the disk. The actuator assembly also includes an arm which has a first layer of material including a plurality of elongated fibers orientated in a first direction, and a second layer of material including a plurality of elongated fibers orientated in a second direction. The first and second layers are part of a composite material. The transducer is attached to said arm. The resulting actuator arm has a resonant frequency that can be varied or moved or shifted by varying the direction of the elongated fibers in the second layer with respect to the direction of the elongated fibers in the first layer. The resonant frequency is varied so that it is at a different frequency than the resonant frequency peaks associated with the other components of the disk drive, such as the resonance frequency of the disk or disks of the drive and the head suspension assembly (HSA). The arm may also include signal-carrying wires which are positioned between the layers of the composite arm and heat conductive fibers to remove heat from a heat producing source, such as from a chip on the arm.