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:
Dec. 03, 2002
Filed:
Jun. 06, 2000
Scott Tucker, Raleigh, NC (US);
Mitsubishi Electric and Electronics, U.S.A., Inc, Durham, NC (US);
Abstract
Shorts are detected in terminals fed current by a driver connected to the terminals. To detect terminal-to-ground shorts, at least one virtual driver is connected to the driver for processing an output of the driver, and a detector detects if a short has occurred, based on an output of the virtual driver, by detecting when an output of the virtual driver exceeds a first threshold. If the detector detects that the output of the virtual driver has exceeded the first threshold, this indicates a terminal-to-ground short. To detect terminal-to-terminals shorts, a detector detects when an output of the driver drops below a second threshold. If the detector detects that the output of the driver has dropped below the second threshold, this indicates a terminal-to-terminal short. Shorts may be detected in terminals in one or more write heads. The driver, virtual driver, and detector may be included in a preamplifier. Detecting shorts in this manner avoids the loss of data without impeding performance of the write driver.