A microactuator comprised of a piezoelectric motor mounted on a flexure tongue with offsetting hinges, to perform a fine positioning of the magnetic read/write head. The substantial gain in the frequency response greatly improves the performance and accuracy of the track-follow control for fine positioning. The simplicity of the enhanced microactuator design results in a manufacturing efficiency that enables a high-volume, low-cost production.

Microactuator with offsetting hinges and method for high-resolution positioning of magnetic read/write head

A magnetic head includes a slider, and a head portion provided at the slider. The slider and the head respectively have disk opposing surfaces opposite to a surface of a magnetic disk, and the disk opposing surface of the head portion is positioned more apart from the surface of the magnetic disk than the disk opposing surface of the slider. The head portion includes recording and reproducing elements at least partially exposing to the disk opposing surface, and a thermal expanding member arranged in the vicinity of the recording and reproducing elements to thermally expand the disk opposing surface in a direction of approaching the surface of the magnetic disk.

Magnetic disk apparatus

A method for servowriting a magnetic hard disk drive includes servowriting a first servo burst pattern by using a servowriter coupled to a head-disk assembly within a clean room environment, self-writing at least a second servo burst pattern radially offset relative to the first burst pattern by reading the first burst pattern without using the servowriter, and self-writing a final burst pattern by using the first burst pattern and the second burst pattern without using the servowriter. One or more intermediate burst patterns may be provided to accommodate writer/reader offset of dual element read heads in order to produce final product servo burst patterns. A disk drive having embedded servo sectors each including an untrimmed six-burst final servo pattern is also disclosed. The disk drive self-writes at least some of the final servo pattern.

Hard disk drive having self-written servo burst patterns

A magnetic head includes a slider body having a trailing surface meeting an air-bearing surface at a trailing edge and a thin-film transducer that includes a magnetic reproducing element with a magnetoresistive (MR) element disposed near the trailing edge within a gap material bounded by upper and lower shield layers. The thin-film transducer also includes a lower pole layer of a magnetic recording element disposed in a first general plane. The magnetic recording element further includes a coil having first and second turn layers disposed in second and third general planes, respectively. The magnetic head also includes resistive heating element with at least a portion of the heating element being disposed in a fourth general plane beneath both the lower pole layer and the coil but above the upper shield layer. Current flow through the heating element causes expansion of the magnetic reproducing and recording elements at the ABS.

Magnetic recording head with resistive heating element located near the write coil

An actuator is coupled between a head and a flexure, the actuator providing submicron positioning of the head while reducing undesirable vibrations of the flexure. The actuator includes a stator and a rotor, with a plurality of deformable elements coupled between the stator and the rotor. In one aspect the rotor, stator and deformable elements are constructed so that the rotor has a substantially fixed axis of rotation relative to the stator, and the actuation of a transducer in the head is magnified. In another aspect the rotor is coupled to the head so that the axis of rotation is substantially aligned with the center of mass of the head and rotor, increasing the frequency at which the actuator can move the head and reducing vibrations in the flexure caused by actuation of the head.

Piezoelectric microactuators with substantially fixed axis of rotation and magnified stroke

A device for reading and recording magnetic data includes an aerodynamically supported slider with an air bearing surface, and a transducer mounted to the slider for movement toward and away from the air bearing surface responsive to changes in the slider operating temperature. In one embodiment, the transducer movement is primarily due to a difference in thermal expansion coefficients between a transducing region of the slider incorporating the transducer, and the remainder of the slider body. In another embodiment, a strip of thermally expansive material is incorporated into the slider near the transducer to contribute to the displacement by its own expansion. A temperature control circuit, coupled to the strip of thermally expansive material or to a resistance heating element on the slider, employs a variable current source to control the slider temperature and transducer displacement. Nominal slider operating temperatures can be set to achieve a predetermined transducer flying height, to compensate for variations in flying heights among batch fabricated sliders. Optionally, a temperature sensor can be employed to measure the slider operating temperatures and provide a temperature sensitive input to the temperature control circuit.

Slider with temperature responsive transducer positioning

A gimbal for supporting a slider at its leading surface in a disc drive assembly includes a gimbal body, a slider support beam and a slider mounting tab. The slider support beam is carried by the gimbal body and defines a vertical slider alignment feature. The slider mounting tab extends out of plane from the slider support beam and defines a horizontal slider alignment feature. The slider mounting tab is attached to the leading surface of the slider. The design of the slider mounting tab of the present invention is useful for supporting a leading edge microactuator at a leading edge of the slider for micropositioning a transducer over ideal track centers on a disc surface.

Gimbal suspension for supporting a head in a disc drive assembly

A disc drive includes a transducer having a separate element for writing information and a separate element for reading information to and from the disc. In a disc drive designated to read and write long sequential records, the track misregistration budget is reduced to account for previously written tracks not being encroached on one side. An initial track is written. Subsequent tracks are written after a seek in one direction. The subsequent track is written so that the initially written track is overwritten to one side and leaves a track having a width substantially equal to the width of the read element. Records can be written into data bands of a selected number of tracks. A guard band is left between groups of data bands so that data on tracks in subsequent data bands are not overwritten.

Method to achieve higher track density by allowing only one-sided track encroachment

The shock absorber apparatus for a disc drive is a molded polymeric enclosure adapted to receive and retain a disc drive. One preferred embodiment of the present invention has a shock absorbing material of a first thickness adjacent a critical region of the drive and a second thickness of shock absorbing material adjacent a non-critical region of the disc drive. The first thickness is greater than the second thickness in order to absorb a greater shock load to protect the critical region of the disc drive.

Wrap around shock absorber for disc drives

A head positioning mechanism in a disc drive system is disclosed. The disc drive system includes a rotatable disc (12), an actuator arm (18), and a suspension load beam (22, 32, 52, 72) connected to the actuator arm (18). The head positioning mechanism includes a motor (38, 58) attached to the suspension load beam (22, 32, 52, 72). A gimbal (23, 33, 53, 73) has a first end attached to the motor (38, 58), and a slider (24, 34, 54, 74) carrying a transducing head (35, 55, 75) is attached to a second end of the gimbal (23, 33, 53, 73). Control circuitry (39, 59, 79) generates electrical control signals to operate the motor (38, 58) to selectively position the transducing head (35, 55, 75) proximate a predetermined radial location on the rotatable disc (12).

Joseph Cheng-Tsu Liu

Papers

Slider with temperature responsive transducer positioning

Gimbal suspension for supporting a head in a disc drive assembly

Method to achieve higher track density by allowing only one-sided track encroachment

Wrap around shock absorber for disc drives

Gimbal micropositioning device