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US 11,120,826 B1Granted
Digital storage system that includes sensor and circuit to determine contact and/or distance between read/write head and data storage medium
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsMichael Thomas Johnson, Peng Peng, Declan Macken
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure includes systems and methods for using a comparator-based, relaxation oscillator circuit to detect capacitance of a capacitor formed between a metallic feature in a read/write head and a metallic feature in a storage medium.
Claims20
A digital storage system, comprising:
- a storage medium having a major surface, wherein the storage medium comprises at least a first metallic feature;
- a read/write head having a major surface facing the major surface of the storage medium, wherein the read/write head comprises at least a second metallic feature, and wherein the digital storage system is configured to actuate the major surface of the read/write head toward and away from the major surface of the storage medium, and wherein the first metallic feature is electrically coupled to the second metallic feature to form a capacitor;
- and
- a comparator-based, relaxation oscillator circuit electrically coupled to the capacitor, wherein the comparator-based, relaxation oscillator circuit is configured to produce a periodic signal output that correlates to a capacitance between the first metallic feature of the storage medium and the second metallic feature of the read/write head.
1 more element
A method of detecting a capacitance of a capacitor formed between a read/write head and a storage medium, wherein the method comprises:
- providing a capacitor formed between the read/write head and the storage medium, wherein the capacitor is electrically coupled to a comparator-based, relaxation oscillator circuit;
- and
- applying a voltage to the comparator-based, relaxation oscillator circuit to produce a periodic signal output that correlates to a capacitance of the capacitor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.