Piezoelectric motor for hard disk drive actuator arm
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsRiyan Alex Mendonsa, Brett Robert Herdendorf, Xiong Liu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Described are hard drive devise in which piezoelectric motors are used to drive the motion of actuator arms, rather than the actuator arms being controlled by electromagnetic means such as a conventional voice coil motor. Piezo-based motors suitable for use with devices of the present disclosure may include inchworm motors, brake crawler motors, ultrasonic motors (USMs), and so forth. Such piezo motors may be used to drive rotary actuator motion or linear actuator motion. Moreover, piezo motors can be provided in a compact form factor that allows the actuator arms of a stack of actuator arms to be separately controlled, either as groups or individually.
Claims11
A hard disk drive for using recording heads to store data on rotating magnetic media disks, the hard disk drive comprising:
- a stack of multiple actuator assemblies that are rotatably coupled to a stationary pivot, each actuator assembly configured to suspend an associated recording head over a surface of an associated rotating magnetic media disk, the stationary pivot being stationary relative to a housing of the hard disk drive and located a distance away from the rotating magnetic media disks;
- and
- a piezo motor configured to rotate the stack of actuator assemblies around the stationary pivot together as a single unit.
A hard disk drive for using recording heads to store data on rotating magnetic media disks, the hard disk drive comprising:
- a stack of multiple actuator assemblies that are independently rotatable around a stationary pivot, each actuator assembly configured to suspend an associated recording head over a surface of an associated rotating magnetic media disk, the stationary pivot being stationary relative to a housing of the hard disk drive and located a distance away from the rotating magnetic media disks;
- and
- a piezo motor configured to rotate one of the actuator assemblies of the stack of actuator assemblies around the stationary pivot.
A hard disk drive for using a plurality of recording heads to store data on recording surfaces of a plurality of rotating magnetic media disks, the hard disk drive comprising:
- a plurality of actuator assemblies, each of the actuator assemblies configured to suspend one or more of the plurality of recording heads over corresponding one or more recording surfaces of the plurality of rotating magnetic media disks, the plurality of actuator assemblies being independently rotatable around a single stationary pivot that is stationary relative to a housing of the hard disk drive;
- and
- a plurality of piezo motors, each of the plurality of piezo motors associated with a different one of the plurality of actuator assemblies and configured to rotate the associated actuator assembly around the stationary pivot,
- wherein the piezo motors are arranged into a first vertically aligned stack comprising a first portion of the piezo motors, the first vertically aligned stack positioned at a first location around the stationary pivot, and a second vertically aligned stack comprising a second portion of the piezo motors, the second vertically aligned stack positioned at a second location around the stationary pivot separated from the first location.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.