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:
Nov. 21, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 28, 1998
Applicant:
Inventor:
Peter E Brooks, Rochester, MN (US);
Assignee:
Western Digital Corporation, Irvine, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G11B / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
360 9702 ;
Abstract
A spindle motor for a disk drive includes a shaft, a stator, a hub, an upper bearing, a lower bearing, means for defining a gap and an ionization source. The stator is concentrically positioned about the shaft. The upper and lower bearings rotatably maintain the hub relative to the shaft and each include a plurality of balls, each ball made from a high resistivity material. The ionization source ionizes air in the gap for allowing static electric charge to dissipate through a conductive path provided by the ionized air in the gap.