Thermal Fly-Height Control Slider Instability and Dynamics at Touchdown: Explanations Using Nonlinear Systems Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sripathi Vangipuram Canchi ◽  
David B. Bogy
Keyword(s):  
Nonlinear Systems ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Resonance Condition ◽  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Jump Condition ◽  
Surface Design ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Low Head ◽  
Fly Height

Thermal fly-height control sliders are widely used in current hard disk drives to control and maintain subnanometer level clearance between the read-write head and the disk. The peculiar dynamics observed during touchdown/contact tests for certain slider designs is investigated through experiments and analytical modeling. Nonlinear systems theory is used to highlight slider instabilities arising from an unfavorable coupling of system vibration modes through an internal resonance condition, as well as the favorable suppression of instabilities through a jump condition. Excitation frequencies that may lead to large amplitude slider vibrations and the dominant frequencies at which slider response occurs are also predicted from theory. Using parameters representative of the slider used in experiments, the theoretically predicted frequencies are shown to be in excellent agreement with experimental results. This analytical study highlights some important air bearing surface design considerations that can help prevent slider instability as well as help mitigate unwanted slider vibrations, thereby ensuring the reliability of the head-disk interface at extremely low head-disk clearances.

scholarly journals Parametric Investigations at the Head-Disk Interface of Thermal Fly-Height Control Sliders in Contact

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sripathi V. Canchi ◽  
David B. Bogy ◽  
Run-Han Wang ◽  
Aravind N. Murthy
Keyword(s):  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Air Bearing ◽  
Head Disk Interface ◽  
Bearing Surface ◽  
Surface Design ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
And Control ◽  
Fly Height

Accurate touchdown power detection is a prerequisite for read-write head-to-disk spacing calibration and control in current hard disk drives, which use the thermal fly-height control slider technology. The slider air bearing surface and head gimbal assembly design have a significant influence on the touchdown behavior, and this paper reports experimental findings to help understand the touchdown process. The dominant modes/frequencies of excitation at touchdown can be significantly different leading to very different touchdown signatures. The pressure under the slider at touchdown and hence the thermal fly-height control efficiency as well as the propensity for lubricant pickup show correlation with touchdown behavior which may be used as metrics for designing sliders with good touchdown behavior. Experiments are devised to measure friction at the head-disk interface of a thermal fly-height control slider actuated into contact. Parametric investigations on the effect of disk roughness, disk lubricant parameters, and air bearing surface design on the friction at the head-disk interface and slider burnishing/wear are conducted and reported.

A Method to Reduce Head-Disk Interface (HDI) Degradation Risk During Thermal Asperity (TA) Mapping in a Hard Disk Drive

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhishek Srivastava ◽  
Rahul Rai ◽  
Karthik Venkatesh ◽  
Bernhard Knigge
Keyword(s):  
Hard Disk Drive ◽  
Bias Voltage ◽  
Disk Drive ◽  
Test Time ◽  
Head Disk Interface ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Contact Sensor ◽  
Fly Height ◽  
Sample Set

Abstract One of the issues in thermal asperity (TA) detection using an embedded contact sensor (ECS) is the degradation caused to the read/write elements of the head while interacting with the TA. We propose a method to reduce such head-disk interaction (HDI) during TA detection and classification by flying higher at low thermal fly-height control (TFC) power, which minimizes the interaction of the TA with the head. The key idea is to scan the head at higher fly height, but with higher ECS bias voltage. Initial experiments have shown that the TA count follows a negative cubic relationship with the backoff at various bias levels, and that it follows a square relationship with bias at various backoff levels. Using a sample set, the calibration curves i.e. the golden relationship between these parameters can be established. Using these, one can start the TA detection at the highest backoff and high ECS bias, and start to estimate the nominal TA count. By mapping out these TAs and ensuring the head does not fly over them again to prevent HDI, the fly height can then be lowered, and the rest of the TA cluster can be scanned. Following this method iteratively, the entire TA cluster can be mapped out with minimal interaction with the head. Although this method entails an increase in the test time to detect and map all TAs, compared to detecting them with TFC being on, this can help improve the reliability of the drive by protecting the sensitive read/write elements especially for energy assisted recording from HDI.

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Dynamic Instability in the Head Disk Interface at Proximity

2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (3) ◽  
pp. 530-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit Ambekar ◽  
Vineet Gupta ◽  
David B. Bogy
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Instability ◽  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Areal Density ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Flying Height ◽  
Stable Fly ◽  
Lubricant Thickness ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Fly Height

As the flying height decreases to achieve greater areal density in hard disk drives, different proximity forces act on the air bearing slider, which results in fly height modulation and instability. Identifying and characterizing these forces has become important for achieving a stable fly height at proximity. One way to study these forces is by examining the fly height hysteresis, which is a result of many constituent phenomena. The difference in the touchdown and takeoff rpm (hysteresis) was monitored for different slider designs, varying the humidity and lubricant thickness of the disks, and the sliders were monitored for lubricant pickup while the disks were examined for lubricant depletion and modulation. Correlation was established between the observed hysteresis and different possible constituent phenomena. One such phenomenon was identified as the Intermolecular Force from the correlation between the lubricant thickness and the touchdown velocity. Simulations using 3D dynamic simulation software explain the experimental trends.

A Heat Transfer Study in the Head Disk Interface and an Insight to Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Design

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoyu Wu ◽  
David Bogy
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Magnetic Recording ◽  
Convective Heat Transfer Coefficient ◽  
Head Disk Interface ◽  
Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Contact Sensor ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Fly Height

Understanding the heat transfer in the head disk interface (HDI) in the heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is important. In this paper, we report on a series of experiments to study the heat transfer in the HDI using the perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) heads and media. The temperature increase of the embedded contact sensor (ECS) and the thermal fly-height control (TFC) heater was compared in the fly setup and non-fly setup. A series of simulations were performed to explain the results. We show that the design of the air bearing surface can significantly affect the pressure distribution in the read/write transducer area, and thereby affect the convective heat transfer coefficient.

Thermal Fly-Height Controlled Glide for Disk Defect Detection and In-Situ Defect Size Estimation for Disk Drives

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aravind N. Murthy ◽  
Karl A. Flechsig ◽  
Wes Hillman ◽  
Keith Conard ◽  
Remmelt Pit
Keyword(s):  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Sem Analysis ◽  
Disk Drives ◽  
Size Estimation ◽  
Optical Surface ◽  
Force Microscopy ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Atomic Force ◽  
Fly Height

Current hard disk drives (HDD’s) use thermal fly-height control (TFC) during read/write operations. In this study, we use TFC technology during the disk glide process to determine sub-5nm height defects. We also utilize TFC to measure the height of the defect during glide operation. Addtionally, we magnetically mark the disk locations where defects are detected for further post-processing of the defects using optical surface analysis (OSA), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The defect height estimation during the glide was confirmed to be accurate by AFM and SEM analysis. Finally, we will present the TFC glide sensitivity showing capability of detecting smaller defects than conventional non-TFC glide technologies.

Flying Clearance Distribution With Thermal Flying Height Control in Hard Disk Drives

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Chang Lee ◽  
George W. Tyndall ◽  
Mike Suk
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Compensation ◽  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Hard Disk ◽  
Flying Height ◽  
Disk Drives ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Height Control ◽  
Thermal Flying Height Control ◽  
Height Change ◽  
The Individual

Flying clearance distribution with thermal flying height control (or thermomechanical actuation) is characterized. Especially, factors contributing to variation in the flying clearance are identified based on the flying height change profiles taken from the burn-in process of hard disk drives and Gage R&R (repeatability and reproducibility) test of touch down repeatability. In addition, the effect of static temperature compensation scheme on the flying clearance distribution is investigated, and the disadvantage of static adaptation to temperature change is identified. In order to avoid early catastrophic head-disk interface failures due to poor static temperature compensation, dynamic clearance adjustment is necessary whenever environmental condition changes. Otherwise, static temperature compensation using the individual temperature sensitivity values of each head needs to be applied.

A Method for Characterizing the Head-Disk Interface Dynamics Near the Touchdown Conditions Using the Magnetic Fly-Height

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Rai ◽  
Abhishek Srivastava ◽  
Bernhard Knigge ◽  
Aravind N. Murthy
Keyword(s):  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Areal Density ◽  
Disk Surface ◽  
Disk Drives ◽  
Head Disk Interface ◽  
Soft Contact ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Magnetic Spacing ◽  
Bearing Stiffness ◽  
Fly Height

Abstract Recent growth in the cloud storage industry has created a massive demand for higher capacity hard disk drives (HDD). A sub-nanometer head media spacing (HMS) remains the most critical pre-requisite to achieve the areal density needed to deliver the next generation of HDD products. Designing a robust head-disk interface (HDI) with small physical clearance requires the understanding of slider dynamics, especially when the head flies in proximity to the disk surface. In this paper, we describe a method using the magnetic read-back signal to characterize the head fly-height modulations as it undergoes a transition from a free-flying state to soft contact with the disk surface. A technique based on the magnetic fly-height sensitivity is introduced for the identification of the transition plane that corresponds to the onset of the touchdown process. Additionally, the proposed magnetic spacing based meteorology is used to study the effect of the air bearing stiffness on the magnitude of the slider vibrations induced by intermittent head-disk interactions. The information about the minimum spacing while maintaining the stable flying conditions can help in reducing the head-disk interaction risk that can enable a low clearance interface.

Dynamic Stability and Spacing Modulation of Sub-25 nm Fly Height Sliders

1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Hu ◽  
David B. Bogy
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Stability ◽  
Hard Disk Drives ◽  
Dynamics Simulation ◽  
Inertia Force ◽  
Roll Motion ◽  
Air Bearing ◽  
Skew Angle ◽  
Disk Interface ◽  
Bearing Stiffness ◽  
Fly Height

Designing a reliable sub-25 nm spacing head/disk interface for today’s magnetic hard disk drives demands a greater dynamic stability and a smaller spacing modulation. An air bearing dynamic simulator with multiple features is developed to investigate the dynamic characteristics of three shaped-rail negative pressure sub-25 nm fly height sliders. Various simulations including air bearing stiffness, impulse response, surface roughness induced spacing modulation, bump response, and track seeking dynamics are performed. The results indicate that the roughness induced spacing modulation decreases with the increase of the air bearing stiffness and the decrease of the slider size. The suspension dynamics is integrated into the air bearing dynamics simulation for the track accessing motion by modal analysis. It is concluded that the fly height modulation during a track accessing event is attributed to many factors such as the effective skew angle, the seeking velocity, and the roll motion caused by the inertia of the moving head. The extent of the roll motion effect depends on the air bearing roll stiffness and the level of the inertia force of the moving head. Larger roll stiffness and smaller inertia force produce a smoother track accessing performance.

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