Hard Disk Drive Head-Disk Interface Dithering
AssigneeHGST Netherlands B.V.
InventorsSripathi V. Canchi, Sukumar Rajauria, James W. Reiner, Erhard Schreck
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A procedure for accurately determining thermal flying height control (TFC) touchdown power associated with a head-disk interface (HDI) in a hard disk drive (HDD) involves dithering the spacing corresponding to the HDI by applying an oscillating signal. The touchdown power with the HDI dithering applied is determined and, based on that and the dithering amplitude, the touchdown power without dithering applied, as well as the back-off power, is determinable.
Claims21
A method for determining touchdown power associated with a head-disk interface (HDI) in a hard disk drive (HDD), the method comprising:
- dithering the spacing corresponding to said HDI by applying an oscillating signal;
- determining touchdown power with HDI dithering applied;
- based on said touchdown power with HDI dithering applied, determining touchdown power without HDI dithering applied;
- and
- storing, within said HDD, a characterization of said touchdown power without dithering applied.
A hard disk drive (HDD) comprising:
- a disk media rotatably mounted on a spindle;
- a head slider comprising a read/write head configured to read from and to write to said disk media;
- a voice coil actuator configured to move said head slider to access portions of said disk media;
- and
- a least one electronic component comprising one or more sequence of instructions which, when executed by one or more processor, causes performance of:
- dithering the spacing between said head slider and said disk media by applying an oscillating signal;
- determining touchdown power with head-disk interface (HDI) dithering applied;
- based on said touchdown power with HDI dithering applied, determining touchdown power without HDI dithering applied;
- storing, within said HDD, a characterization of said touchdown power without dithering applied;
- and
- providing a back-off power signal to a thermal flying height control (TFC) heater element to achieve a particular spacing between said head slider and said disk media.
An electronic component comprising one or more sequence of instructions which, when executed by one or more processor, causes performance of:
- dithering the spacing between a head slider and a disk media by applying an oscillating signal;
- determining touchdown power with head-disk interface (HDI) dithering applied;
- and
- based on said touchdown power with HDI dithering applied, determining touchdown power without HDI dithering applied.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.