Patent Application
20060108233
This application claims priority to and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-97653, filed Nov. 25, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a form factor disk such as an optical or magnetic disk for use in electronic appliances, information appliances and so forth, and more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a form factor disk capable of minimizing a thickness of the disk and simplifying a manufacture process.
2. Discussion of Related Art
As information technology advances, performance of electronic appliances or information appliances has been rapidly improved. Also, as personal information storage capacity increases, demand of a form factor disk has been continuously increased.
Typical information appliances such as an optical recording and reproducing apparatus have been rapidly minimized and slimmed down in order to increase mobility of information and to be mounted in a small computer or a mobile phone. As a result, minimization of an information storage medium as a detachable disk also has been rapidly performed. In order to minimize the form factor disk, a sectional area and a thickness of the form factor disk should be more reduced.
In general, the form factor disk such as an optical or magnetic disk includes a circular disk 1 made of a polycarbonate material and having a hole at its center as shown in
The metal hubs 3 are attached to a magnetic rotational disk (a magnetic chuck) connected to a rotational shaft of a spindle motor with a rotational shaft of the information appliances being inserted through the holes 2 and 4. Information is stored in an information storage region 5 of the disk 1 or the information stored in the information storage region 5 is read with the disk 1 being rapidly rotated about the rotational shaft depending on rotation of the magnetic rotational disk. At this time, the metal hubs 3 are fixed by magnetic attraction of the magnetic rotational disk to be not deviated from the center axis or to be not shaken even though it is rotated at a high speed. Therefore, the magnetic rotational disk should have the magnetic attraction such that the disk does not slide from the rotational shaft.
Conventionally, as shown in
However, the following problems may be encountered when the disk is manufactured by the method.
First, since the connecting layer 6 and the metal hubs 3 are layered on the upper and lower parts of the disk 1, the center thickness of the disk becomes larger. When the thickness of the disk becomes larger, since a height of the rotational shaft of the information appliances should be also increased to rotate the disk, the information appliance becomes thicker. As a result, it is difficult to make the appliances ultra-small and ultra-slim.
Second, since the metal hubs 3 are attached to the disk 1 through various processes, the processes are complicated. That is, since the upper and lower metal hubs 3a and 3b are respectively attached to the upper and lower part of the disk 1 after attaching the upper and lower metal hubs 3a and 3b to the connecting layer 6, the number of manufacturing processes is increased, thereby increasing the manufacture cost.
Third, when the upper and lower metal hubs 3a and 3b are attached to the upper and lower parts of the disk, respectively, since the upper and lower metal hubs 3a and 3b should be aligned and attached in a horizontal state, location alignment is difficult, thereby decreasing productivity.
The present invention, therefore, solves aforementioned problems associated with conventional methods by providing a method of manufacturing a form factor disk capable of minimizing a thickness of the disk and simplifying manufacturing processes.
In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of manufacturing a form factor disk includes: providing a circular disk having an information storage region and a hole formed at a center portion thereof; forming a seed layer at the center portion of the disk; and forming a hub by installing an electrode on the seed layer and plating a magnetic material on the seed layer using an electroplating method.
In another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of manufacturing a form factor disk includes: providing a circular disk having an information storage region and a hole formed at a center portion thereof; and forming a hub by depositing a magnetic material on the center portion of the disk.
The above and other features of the present invention will be described in reference to certain exemplary embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which:
The present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.
Referring to
Referring to
In the case of using the electroplating method, first, a seed layer (not shown) is formed at a center portion of the disk 11 to a thickness of tens of nm using a vacuum deposition method. The seed layer is formed of a conductive layer such as Ni, Cu and so on. Then, an electrode is installed on the seed layer, and the magnetic material is plated on the seed layer using the electroplating method.
In the case of using the vacuum deposition method such as a sputtering method, an electron beam deposition method, and so forth, since the polycarbonate constituting the disk 11 is sensitive to heat, the disk 11 is cooled during the deposition of the magnetic material. In addition, a mask as a shadow mask is used to allow the magnetic material to be deposited at only the center portion of the disk 11.
The magnetic material may use a high permeability material such as an Fe-based alloy, permalloy (NiFe), FeSi, FeZrN and so on. When these materials are used, it is possible to maximize attraction to the magnetic rotational disk connected to a rotational shaft of the spindle motor.
The hubs 14a and 14b should have a thickness corresponding to the attraction such that the hubs 14a and 14b are not slid or shaken from the magnetic rotational disk made of a permanent magnet when the disk is rotated. Therefore, in order to satisfy this condition, the magnetic attraction between the magnetic rotational disk made of a permanent magnet and the hubs 14a and 14b made of a magnetic material should have an intensity sufficient to endure a weight of the disk.
On the assumption that the hubs 14a and 14b have a diameter of 14 mm, the hole 12 formed at the center portion of the disk has a diameter of 2.8 mm, and the magnetic rotational disk made of a permanent magnet has the same size as the hubs 14a and 14b, when the magnetic material is iron (density=7.86 g/cm3), the hubs 14a and 14b have a thickness of about 50 μm and a weight of about 57 dyne. Therefore, the magnetic attraction corresponding thereto can be obtained using the following formula 1.
F=AB2/8π [Formula 1]
where, A is an area of a contact surface, and B is a magnetic induction value of a permanent magnet.
Viewing from
As can be seen from the foregoing, the present invention is capable of minimizing a thickness of the disk and simplifying a manufacturing process by depositing or plating the magnetic material to form the hubs. As a result, it is possible to manufacture an ultra-small and ultra-slim form factor disk, and therefore, to facilitate ultra-minimization and ultra-slim of information appliances.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to certain exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that a variety of modifications and variations may be made to the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention defined in the appended claims, and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-97653 | Nov 2004 | KR | national |
