Hard disk drive sealed in helium using a secondary container
AssigneeHGST Netherlands B.V.
InventorsVipin Ayanoor Vitikkate, Toshiki Hirano
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A hard disk drive (HDD) assembly includes a conventional HDD enclosed within a two-piece metal container, whereby a lid is hermetically sealed to a body by melted metal and wherein the container is filled with helium gas. For example, the container may be formed of tin-plated steel and the two pieces soldered together to form the hermetically sealed container, having an electrical feed-through sealed similarly.
Claims21
A hard disk drive (HDD) assembly,
- comprising:
- an HDD comprising:
- a head slider comprising a magnetic read/write head for reading data from and writing data to one or more magnetic-recording disk,
- a magnetic-recording disk rotatably mounted on a spindle,
- a voice coil actuator configured to move the head slider to access portions of the magnetic-recording disk, and
- an HDD enclosure in which said head slider, disk, spindle and voice coil actuator are enclosed;
- a metal container within which said HDD is enclosed, said container comprising:
- a body,
- a lid hermetically sealed to said body by melted metal, and
- wherein said container is filled with helium;
- and
- a thermally conductive material having a thermal conductivity greater than that of helium positioned between said HDD and the internal surface of said metal container, to conduct heat from said HDD to said metal container.
A method of hermetically sealing a hard disk drive (HDD) in a secondary metal container, the method comprising:
- attaching an HDD to a seamless deep drawn metal base, of said secondary container, having a solder wettable surface;
- attaching a seamless deep drawn metal lid having a solder wettable surface to said base to form a container;
- soldering said lid to said base creating a semi-sealed assembly;
- placing said semi-sealed assembly into a vacuum chamber and applying a vacuum to remove all the air from said HDD and from said container, wherein said assembly comprises a port for exchange of gases;
- filling said chamber with a helium gas mixture at a predetermined pressure;
- and
- after maintaining said predetermined pressure for a predetermined period of time, sealing said port creating a hermetically sealed assembly.
A method of hermetically sealing a hard disk drive (HDD) in a secondary metal container, the method comprising:
- attaching an HDD to a welding-compatible metal base of said secondary container;
- attaching a welding-compatible metal lid to said base to form a container;
- welding said lid to said base creating a semi-sealed assembly;
- placing said semi-sealed assembly into a vacuum chamber and applying a vacuum to remove all the air from said HDD and from said container, wherein said assembly comprises a port for exchange of gases;
- filling said chamber with a helium gas mixture at a predetermined pressure;
- and
- after maintaining said predetermined pressure for a predetermined period of time, sealing said port creating a hermetically sealed assembly.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.