The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 26, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 15, 1997
John S Berg, Bellingham, MA (US);
Neville K Lee, Kowloon, HK;
Digital Papyrus Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A flying head mechanism includes a flying head, a suspension and an actuator which applies a load force through the suspension. The load force applied by the actuator is adjustable while the head is in operation. The actuator may actively control load force as part of a feedback loop which maintains the flying head at a constant flying height. One embodiment disclosed includes a voice coil actuator. In embodiments using an optical flying head, a conventional focus sensor may provide a signal indicative of flying height, since the focus signal inherently indicates flying height error. The flying head includes a contact sensor which detects head/disk contact. The head further includes means for changing the focus of the optical elements, without changing the flying height of the head. The entire suspension is mounted in a shock and vibration immune configuration. Two heads may be used in some embodiments, in which more than one type of media may be read or written by the disk drive.