US 2014/0177090 A1 · MEDIA TOPOGRAPHY DRIVEN FLYING HEIGHT MODULATION SENSING USING EMBEDDED CONTACT SENSOR

Abstract

Approaches for a flying height control scheme in a hard-disk drive (HDD) device. The flying height control scheme utilizes an embedded contact sensor (ECS) to characterize the topography of a magnetic-recording disk at various flying heights of a head slider over a corresponding disk. A relation between a particular flying height and a corresponding ECS value which characterizes the media topography at that particular flying height is represented in disk topography data. The disk topography data is accessed and used for active flying height control for the head-disk interface in view of the current ECS value.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A hard-disk drive, comprising:

a head slider comprising an embedded contact sensor (ECS) and a flying height control heater;
a magnetic-recording disk rotatably mounted on a spindle;
a voice coil motor configured to move the head slider to access portions of the magnetic-recording disk;
and
an electronic component configured to control the flying height between the head slider and the magnetic-recording disk, the electronic component configured for:
accessing disk topography data that represents, for a particular defined flying height, a corresponding ECS-based disk roughness value which characterizes the topography of the magnetic-recording disk, and
substantially maintaining the particular flying height based on the disk topography data and an ECS signal corresponding to the current flying height.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Media topography driven flying height modulation sensing using embedded contact sensor

Life of this patent

Media topography driven flying height modulation sensing using embedded contact sensor

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims18