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:
May. 20, 2008
Filed:
Feb. 27, 2007
Roel Dieron, San Jose, CA (US);
Ryohheita Hattori, San Jose, CA (US);
Satyajit Neelkanth Patwardhan, Fremont, CA (US);
Christopher David Wiederholt, Rochester, MN (US);
Roel Dieron, San Jose, CA (US);
Ryohheita Hattori, San Jose, CA (US);
Satyajit Neelkanth Patwardhan, Fremont, CA (US);
Christopher David Wiederholt, Rochester, MN (US);
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam, NL;
Abstract
A disk drive has a resistive heater located near the read/write head as a thermal fly-height actuator and uses an improved method for operating the fly-height actuator. As part of the method, the heater may be deactivated during a seek to minimize the risk of head-disk contacts. When a write command is received, a level of heater power is applied to pre-heat the write head prior to writing the initial data sectors. This pre-heating heater power level may be higher than the power level used for writing. Then when writing commences, the lower power level is applied to the heater so the write head has the optimal head-disk spacing during the writing of all the data sectors, including the initial data sectors. Even though the heater may be deactivated during the seek the controller can initiate pre-heating during the last portion of the seek before the write head has reached the target track.