Patent Application
20080259480
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a glide test head used to certify a disk of a hard disk drive.
2. Background Information
Hard disk drives contain a plurality of magnetic heads that are coupled to rotating disks. The heads write and read information by magnetizing and sensing the magnetic fields of the disk surfaces. Each head is attached to a flexure arm to create a subassembly commonly referred to as a head gimbal assembly (“HGA”). The HGA's are suspended from an actuator arm. The actuator arm has a voice coil motor that can move the heads across the surfaces of the disks.
In operation, each head is separated from a corresponding disk surface by an air bearing. The air bearing minimizes the mechanical wear between the head and the disk. The strength of the magnetic field is inversely proportional to the height of the air bearing. A smaller air bearing results in a stronger magnetic field on the disks, and vice versa.
The heads typically fly very close to the disk. Any protrusions or other surface irregularities in the disk surfaces may create contact between the heads and the disks. Such contact may cause mechanical wear between the components. Additionally, contact between the heads and disk surfaces may create particles or other by-products that may contaminate the drive.
When mass producing disk drives, the disks are tested to insure a desired surface finish and to determine the magnetic characteristics of each disk. Disks that do not meet certain standards are either re-worked or discarded. Disks are typically tested in a system commonly referred to as a disk certifier. Disk certifiers contain glide heads that can be used to test disks that are loaded onto a spindle motor of the certifier. The certifier also contains electronic circuits that can be used to perform tests. The glide head is usually coupled to a contact sensor, such as a piezoelectric transducer, used to count the number of times the glide head makes contact with the disk surface.
It is desirable to vary the flying height of the glide head during testing to obtain data on the surface of the disk. The flying height is typically varied by using a glide head with a positive pressure slider surface and changing the speed of the spindle motor. Most commercially available disk drives utilize heads that have a negative pressure slider surface. Using a positive pressure slider surface during testing may give results different from those seen in actual disk drives using negative slider surfaces. Negative pressure glide heads are not used to certify disks because such heads do not exhibit as much variation in flying height with changes in spindle motor speed. It would be desirable to provide a disk certifier that can vary fly height with a negative pressure glide head.
A glide head that is used to certify a disk of a hard disk drive. The glide head includes a heating element that can heat and vary a flying height of the head.
Disclosed is a glide head that can be used to certify disks of hard disk drives. The glide head includes a heating element that can change the temperature of a slider surface of the head in the vicinity of the read/write transducers and vary the head flying height. The slider surface may induce a negative pressure so that the glide head more accurately simulates a head used in a production disk drive. A piezoelectric transducer may be coupled to the glide head so that contact between the head and a disk may be sensed and recorded in a disk certification routine.
Referring to the drawings more particularly by reference numbers,
The disk drive 10 may include a plurality of heads 20 located adjacent to the disks 12. As shown in
Referring to
The hard disk drive 10 may include a printed circuit board assembly 38 that includes a plurality of integrated circuits 40 coupled to a printed circuit board 42. The printed circuit board 40 is coupled to the voice coil 32, heads 20 and spindle motor 14 by wires (not shown).
The read/write channel circuit 62 is connected to the controller 66 through read and write channels 68 and 70, respectively, and read and write gates 72 and 74, respectively. The read gate 72 is enabled when data is to be read from the disks 12. The write gate 74 is to be enabled when writing data to the disks 12. The controller 66 may be a digital signal processor that operates in accordance with a software routine, including a routine(s) to write and read data from the disks 12. The read/write channel circuit 62 and controller 66 may also be connected to a motor control circuit 76 that controls a voice coil motor (not shown) and a spindle motor 78 of the certifier 10. The voice coil motor can move the glide heads 56 relative to the disks 12. The controller 66 may be connected to a non-volatile memory device 80. By way of example, the device 80 may be a read only memory (“ROM”) that contains instructions that are read by the controller 66. The disks 12 can be loaded and unloaded from the spindle motor 78 so that disks can be continuously tested 10, by the certifier 50.
As shown in
The glide head 56 has a heating element 96. The heating element 96 is preferably located on the slider surface 94 in the vicinity of read and write elements. The heating element 96 may be a resistive element that is connected to the preamp and controlled by the controller of the disk certifier.
The heating element 96 can generate heat that thermally expands the slider surface 94. The expansion of the slider surface 94 varies the flying height of the head. The controller of the disk certifier can change the current supplied to the heating element 96, which varies the heat and the flying height of the glide head 56. Thus the disk certifier is capable of varying the flying height of a negative pressure slider without changing the speed of the spindle motor.
The glider heads 56 may each have a contact sensor 98 that can sense contact between the heads and the disk surfaces. The contact sensor 98 may include a piezoelectric transducer that provides an electrical output signal that varies with mechanical strain as is known in the art. The signal may be provided to the controller of the certifier 50.
The disk certifier 50 may operate a disk certification routine wherein the glide heads 56 are “flown” adjacent to the disk surfaces. Contact between the heads and disk surfaces can be detected and recorded by the certifier.
Disk certification may also include writing a signal onto the disk thru the write elements of the glide heads. The signal may be a simple sinusoidal signal. The signal can be read through the read elements of the glide heads. The read signals can be analyzed by the certifier to determine whether the disk meets certain criteria. The flying heights of the glide heads may also be varied during this part of the certification process.
While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad invention, and that this invention not be limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other modifications may occur to those ordinarily skilled in the art.
