Magnetic read head with multiple read transducers each having different design characteristics
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsJason C. Jury, Ara Patapoutian, Xiong Liu, Myint Ngwe, Quan Li
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Data is read from a track of a magnetic recording medium via multiple read transducers located at different positions on a read head. The multiple read transducers are substantially positioned over the track when reading the track. The multiple read transducers have different design characteristics manifesting in differences in at least one of magnetic and electrical behavior of the multiple read transducers. One or more signals originating from the multiple read transducers are combined to assist in decoding the data.
Claims16
A system comprising:
- circuitry coupled to receive multiple signals from multiple read transducers located at different positions on a read head, the multiple read transducers substantially positioned over a track of a magnetic recording medium when reading the track, the multiple read transducers having different design characteristics manifesting in differences in at least one of magnetic and electrical behavior of the multiple read transducers;
- and
- a controller coupled to the circuitry and configured to:
- form a combination of the one or more of the multiple signals to assist in decoding the data, each of the one or more signals contributing to the combination according to respective parameters associated with one or more quality measures associated with the multiple signals;
- and
- update the one or more quality measures and the parameters at a time scale that is at least an order of magnitude larger than a sample period of the data.
A method comprising:
- reading data from a track of a magnetic recording medium via multiple read transducers located at different positions on a read head, the multiple read transducers having different design characteristics manifesting in differences in at least one of magnetic and electrical behavior of the multiple read transducers;
- adaptively filtering multiple signals originating from the multiple read transducers to minimize an error between the combined filtered signal and a target signal, an adaptation of the filtering occurring at a time scale that is orders of magnitude larger than a sample period of the data;
- and
- combining the filtered multiple signals to assist in decoding the data.
A method comprising:
- reading data from a track of a magnetic recording medium via two or more read transducers located at different positions on a read head, the two or more read transducers substantially positioned over the track when reading the track, the two or more read transducers having different cross-track widths;
- and
- decoding the data using joint processing of two or more signals originating from the two or more read transducers, the joint processing utilizing branch metric computations;
- and
- adapting the joint processing to obtain more accurate branch metric computations relative to a target signal, wherein the adaptation of the branch metric computations occurs at a time scale that is orders of magnitude larger than a sample period of the data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.