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:
Feb. 08, 2005
Filed:
Apr. 25, 2002
Molly Smith, Rochester, MN (US);
Molly Smith, Rochester, MN (US);
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands, B.V., Amsterdam, NL;
Abstract
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting the presence of contaminants on the slider of a disk drive. By detecting the rate of change of the resistance of a thin film coil of a disk drive write element during drive operation, it can be determined if a foreign material is present on the coil. Nominal resistance change values for write elements of a disk drive are determined at manufacturing time, and are stored within the disk drive. During later operational use, the resistance change for the coil of the write elements is measured and compared with the stored nominal resistance change values. If the difference between the stored nominal resistance values and the measured resistance change values exceeds a predetermined threshold, the drive is presumed to have contaminants on the slider.