Thermal effect limits in ultrahigh-density magnetic recording

In current longitudinal magnetic recording media, high areal density and low noise are achieved by statistical averaging over several hundred weakly coupled ferromagnetic grains per bit cell. Continued scaling to smaller bit and grain sizes, however, may prompt spontaneous magnetization reversal processes when the stored energy per particle starts competing with thermal energy, thereby limiting the achievable areal density. Charap et al. have predicted this to occur at about 40 Gbits/in². This paper discusses thermal effects in the framework of basic Arrhenius-Neel statistical switching models. It is emphasized that magnetization decay is intimately related to high-speed-switching phenomena. Thickness-, temperature- and bit-density dependent recording experiments reveal the onset of thermal decay at “stability ratios” (K_uV/K_BT)₀ ≃35 ± 2. The stability requirement is grain size dispersion dependent and shifts to about 60 for projected 40 Gbits/in ² conditions and ten-year storage times. Higher anisotropy and coercivity media with reduced grain sizes are logical extensions of the current technology until write field limitations are reached. Future advancements will rely on deviations from traditional scaling. Squarer bits may reduce destabilizing stray fields inside the bit transitions. Perpendicular recording may shift the onset of thermal effects to higher bit densities. Enhanced signal processing may allow signal retrieval with fewer grains per bit. Finally, single grain per bit recording may be envisioned in patterned media, with lithographically defined bits     

3 Gb/in2 recording demonstration with dual element headsand thin film disks

We have successfully demonstrated magnetic recording at an areal density of 3 Gb/in² with narrow track inductive-write MR-read dual element heads on low noise Co alloy thin film disks. In this demonstration, the write head is a ten turn thin film inductive head with thick and narrow P2 pole-tips. The read head is a shielded ~1 μm trackwidth MR sensor soft-film biased in the read region for linearization and exchange-biased at the tail regions for magnetic stabilization. During recording tests, the heads were flown over low noise Co-alloy media at a clearance similar to that in the previous 1 Gb/in² recording experiment. Results showed good writability from the narrow track write head in terms of overwrite and hard transition shift. Readback yields symmetrical signals as large as 600 μV (p-p) and rolloff measurements showed 50% densities as high as 5000 fc/mm. Track profile and microtrack profile measurements showed the write and read trackwidths to be ~1.4 μm and ~1.1 μm respectively, with tight side-writing and side-reading characteristics. An overall assessment of the parametric recording results suggested areal density feasibility up to as high as 3 Gb/in². This projection was confirmed by error rate performance testing using a PRML channel with a digital filter and write precompensation. At a data rate of 4-5 Mb/s and at very low ontrack error, a linear density as high as 185 Kbpi and an optimized track pitch as narrow as 1.5 μm were achieved, corresponding to an areal recording density of ~3.1 Gb/in²     

High density recording with write current shaping

A digital magnetic recording system is described that doubles the linear data bit density of an existing head/medium interface. It uses the combination of the following three techniques: an efficient new run-length limited code (3PM), a special kind of ac-bias recording, and pulse slimming by write current shaping. The new code has the inherent potential of increasing linear data density over MFM by 50 percent. This potential can be fully utilized only if the analog waveshape is equalized to optimum spectral shaping. The present paper uses pulse slimming by double step write current shaping to achieve optimum equalization. Write current shaping requires linear operation. This is accomplished by ac-bias recording, assuring symmetrical single pulse shape that allows a large degree of pulse slimming. The parameters of ac-bias recording are chosen so that large signal amplitude is used. This, in conjunction with write current shaping, maximizes signal-to-noise ratio in the read channel, further increasing the bit density. An additional increase is realized by using a low inductance head that yields narrow PW50value. The combination of all these factors results in 8000 BPI density on the original 4000 BPI MFM system.     

Effects of the writing process and crosstalk on the timing accuracy of pulses in NRZ digital recording

The position at which a NRZ transition is recorded is dependent on the write current, the effect of increasing the current being to shift the recorded position beyond the trailing gap edge. The shift is more marked with a thick medium than a thin coating, and is worsened if the write head pole tips are approaching saturation. If the recording field changes magnitude when reversed, positive pulses become displaced relative to negative, and pulse pairing occurs. When recording different patterns on adjacent tracks, peak shifts can occur due to writing crosstalk aiding or opposing the head field and the shifts may well impose an upper limit to track density.     

Recording characteristics of electroless-plated perpendicular media for flexible disks

The read/write characteristics of electroless-plated perpendicular magnetic recording media for flexible disks were studied using commercial VHS and 8-mm VTR ring heads. Excellent results were shown for a medium composed of Co-Ni-Re-P plated on a non-magnetic electroless-plated Ni-P layer. A Ni-P underlayer of only 500 Å greatly improved the read/write characteristics of the disk. Reproduced signals over 300 kFRPI were observed for a system using a VHS head, andD_{50} = 134kFRPI was obtained using an 8-mm head.     

Effects of magnetic fields on flexible disk drive performance

The read/write heads in flexible disk drives operate in the presence of AC and DC magnetic fields generated by solenoids, motors, recording head erase structures, circuit board components, and external sources such as CRT flyback transformers present in "smart terminals and word processors. Time varying magnetic fields induce signal on the read/write coil and introduce interference. This interfering signal increases the error rate and can cause "extra bits". Steady state fields cause shifts in the location of transitions, which also translates into higher error rates. The benefits derived from various shield configurations in and external to the flexible disk drive are presented.     

Data storage and retrieval using perpendicular media andmagnetoresistive read transducer

We have investigated magnetic recording on multilayer perpendicular media using a conventional peak detect channel and a commercial magnetoresistive recording head. A finite impulse response filter was used to equalize the impulse response from perpendicular media into a unipolar pulse. Equalized pulses had a PW₅₀ of 174 nm and a D₅₀ of 131 kfei. Without write precompensation, a linear density of 204 kbits per inch (kbpi) with a 3.3 ns error window margin and a data transfer rate of 75 Mbit/s was measured with an error rate of 4×10^-7. The signal waveform was stable and had good up-down amplitude symmetry     

Magnetic recording configuration for densities beyond 1 Tb/in/sup 2/ and data rates beyond 1 Gb/s

A new magnetic recording system is evaluated that includes the single-pole head, a new medium design, and the soft underlayer of perpendicular recording. The proposed medium consists of perpendicular grains with anisotropy directions tilted optimally about 45/spl deg/ with respect to the perpendicular direction. Here, focus is on the tilt angle at 45/spl deg/ in the crosstrack direction, including a small but typical dispersion. The write pole consists of a tapered-neck single-pole head with a very small throat height that yields maximized write fields without increased edge track degradation. The advantages of tilted perpendicular recording are discussed using theoretical and numerical micromagnetic analyses. This design achieves a much higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than conventional recording, because it is less sensitive to medium orientation distributions and, for the same thermal decay, can utilize media with much smaller grain sizes. The switching speed is much more rapid due to increased recording torque. Estimated recording limits for tilted perpendicular recording with a medium-jitter SNR of 17 dB are beyond densities of 1 Tb/in/sup 2/ and data rates of 1 Gb/s.     

NAND Flash 图像记录系统底层写入控制技术

为提高图像记录系统中 NAND flash 阵列的存储带宽,分别研究和实现了 NAND flash 的片内交叉写入、片内并行写入和片内交叉并行写入控制技术,在此基础上提出了片内交叉写入和片外2级流水线结合的写入方法,该方法利用两组 NAND flash 片内交叉写入的命令地址和数据加载时间来填补烧写时间.最后用硬件方式在 FPGA中分别实现了上述各种写入控制方式的控制器.实验结果表明:本文实现的片内并行写入和片内交叉并行写入是普通写入方式速度的1.48903倍和3.27706倍,而本文提出的写入控制方法的写入速度是普通写入方式的3.96038倍,高于片外4级流水线的性能情况下,将 FPGA 管脚资源占用节省20%,有效降低了成本和记录系统实现难度.     

A magnetic head for 150 MHz, high density recording

A multilayered magnetic head that can read and write at 150 MHz on metal particle tape with a coercivity of 120 kA/m (1500 Oe) has been developed. Ten 2-μm layers of Fe₆₈Ru₈Ga₇ Si₁₇ alloy, with 100 nm of SiO₂ used as spacer, form the magnetic-core thickness and the track width. The head was tested in a rotary recording system at a relative head-to-tape speed of 73 m/s. At a linear density of 4000 fc/mm (100 kfc) and 150 MHz, the measured single frequency signal to 300-kHz-slot noise was 33 dB (RMS-RMS). The measured frequency response curve agrees with theory and indicates a head-to-tape spacing of 70 nm at high speed. The read efficiency of the head decreases from 37% at low frequency to 15% at 150 MHz     

Recording Physics, Design Considerations, and Fabrication of Nanoscale Bit-Patterned Media

Recording physics, design considerations, and fabrication of bit-patterned magnetic medium for next generation data storage systems is presented. (Co/Pd)$_N$ magnetic multilayers are evaluated as candidates for bit-patterned medium recording layer materials for their high and easily tunable magnetic anisotropy. The optimized patterned multilayers used in this study had coercivities in excess of 12–14 kOe. Bit patterning was accomplished using ion-beam proximity printing, a high-throughput direct write lithography where a large array of ion beamlets shaped by a stencil mask is used to write an arbitrary device pattern. It is found that the nature of magnetization reversal strongly depends on bit edge imperfections and is likely to contribute to switching field distribution.      

Analytical modelling of perpendicular recording

An analytical model for perpendicular magnetic recording is presented which is capable of calculating 'ab-initio' the magnetisation distributions written by an 'arbitrary' head field into both single and double layer recording media. Magnetisations are shown to follow the head field distribution existing at the medium's top surface. Application of the theory allows prediction of many of the fundamental features of the perpendicular write/read cycle, e.g. transition widths, replay pulse shapes, D50values etc.     

Preconditioning, write width, and recording properties of Co-Cr-Pt-O perpendicular media with various underlayer designs

The effect of magnetic "preconditioning" on the recording performance of perpendicular media is investigated. Furthermore, the dependence of the magnetic write width (MWW) of shielded-pole heads (SPH) on soft-underlayer (SUL) type and thickness (t/sub SUL/) and the recording performance of perpendicular media with thin SULs are examined. The MWW dependence on SUL structure is influenced by the pole-to-trailing shield spacing. For a wide-gap (/spl sim/80 nm) SPH, thick single-layer, SULs are preferred. For a narrow-gap (/spl sim/50 nm) SPH, MWW is less sensitive to the SUL type. For both narrow and wide-gap SPH and for media with an antiferromagnetically-coupled SUL, MWW is reduced for t/sub SUL/<100 nm. Comparable performance is achieved relative to media with t/sub SUL//spl sim/150 nm.     

Measurements of surface magnetic fields of perpendicular and longitudinal magnetic recorded transitions using a magnetoresistive transducer

Quasi-static recording experiments employing a hybrid single-pole-type write head and a vertical magnetoresistive transducer (MRT) read head are presented. The MRT is shown to be able to measure asymmetries of the remanent magnetization of transitions recorded in perpendicular and longitudinal media. The effects of varying the write field angle by adjusting the write shim placement with respect to the auxiliary pole is shown to be useful in determining the resultant remanent magnetization. Dynamic recording responses correlate with the quasi-static measurements. A model of recorded transitions is presented which combines in-plane arctangent and vertical complementary arctangent remanent magnetization distributions.     

Magnetic field of a ring head on a double layer medium

A simple theoretical model is developed for a Karlquist-type recording head interacting with a two layer recording medium in which the sublayer has a high but finite permeability. During readback the vertical H fields far from the gap are shown to decay exponentially with a characteristic length r given byr = t ast h ast uwhere t is the sublayer thickness, h is the spacing between the head and the sublayer, and u is the relative permeability of the sublayer. The long tails of this field account for observed readback wave forms. The model also predicts that the spatial extent of sublayer saturation during the write process will be twenty to one hundred gap lengths, justifying the assumption that during write one may ignore the sublayer. The write prediction was tested experimentally by making a standstill recording with a Winchester-type head on a double layer medium and measuring the fringing field above the medium with a high-resolution Hall probe. The data were compared to the predictions of an iterative simulation in which the sublayer was either present or absent during write. A significantly better fit was found when the simulated medium contained no sublayer during the write process.     

Side fringing fields and write and read crosstalk of narrow magnetic recording heads

In magnetic recording systems the side fringing fields of magnetic recording heads are responsible for crosstalk from adjacent tracks and eventually for partial erasure of adjacent tracks, thereby limiting the attainable track density. In this paper we derive analytical expressions for the magnetic field near the side of a recording head and calculate the cosine transform of the longitudinal field component, with the head side angle and gap length as parameters. The field of a head of zero width is also considered. Due to the side fringing field the written track is somewhat wider than the geometrical head width; the increase in width being approximately proportional to the maximum field strength in the recording medium and the head-to-medium distance. The amplitudeuof the read crosstalk signal from an adjacent, infinitesimally narrow track is calculated and it appears that it can be approximated byu/u_{0} = 0.5 exp (-2pi x/lambda), where u0is the on-track signal (with zero head-to-medium spacing),xis the distance between track and head side, and λ is the wavelength. Maximum track densities are calculated for a specified crosstalk-to-signal ratio and a given head width and wavelength. For a wavelength of 10 μm, a head width of 5 μm, and a crosstalk of -20 dB, the track density is limited to about 130 tracks/mm, assuming a track width equal to the head width. When the track is taken to be 5 μm wider than the head to account for the effects of the write process, no guardband at all is needed for -20 dB crosstalk and the limit to the track density is 100 tracks/mn.     

Optimization and Monitoring of a System of Recording of Electronic Speckle Interferograms

We develop a program for the complex evaluation of the influence of the parameters of a system of recording of speckle interferograms on the level and contrast of the desired signal and the signal–noise ratio. The program enables one to perform rapid adjustment of the parameters of the recording system and form the optimal mode of speckle-interferometric observations over the shifts of rough surfaces. We propose a procedure (and program) of monitoring of the space–time stability of actual systems of speckle-interferometric observations based on the analysis of the characteristics of speckle interferograms. By using this program, one can reveal the sources of instability and check whether the system is ready for the quantitative evaluation of shifts in the submicrometer range.     

Reversible coercivity vs. temperature losses in activated cobalt adsorbed iron oxides

Most properties of CrO2in magnetic recording media can be matched -and in some cases superseeded- by Surface-Cobalt Modified Iron Oxides. However, while the variation of coercivity with temperature for CrO2is a fully reversible process such variation is partially irreversible for Cobalt Iron Oxides. This relative weakness of Co-iron oxides could become a limiting factor in high density recording systems (such as the IBM 3480 and/or high density microdiskettes). This paper presents experimental evidence on a new Cobalt adsorption system which yealds products whose coercivity losses are fully and completely reversible in the whole range of temperature up to 100°C. In the process of comparing the properties of CrO2vs. Cobalt-Iron Oxides this paper also shows the equivalence of the applicative properties of the two products in terms of output vs. writing current and magnetostrictive effects.     

The synthesis of magnetic recording trellis codes with good hamming distance properties

In this paper we present, by means of an example, a systematic procedure to synthesize combined modulation/error correcting trellis codes, suitable for Viterbi decoding. This synthesis is based on firstly selecting a suitable linear convolutional code, secondly by analysing the state system of this code to determine the important Hamming distance building properties, and finally by mapping a code with the desired restrictions on its sequences onto this state system. As an example we develop a R = 3/6 dc free (b,l,c) = (0,3,2) code withd_{min} = 4. This code improves on the best codes in [1]. Codes havingb geq 1, and which will thus be more suitable for magnetic recording, can also be synthesized following the proposed procedure.     

Computer modeling of the write process in perpendicular recording

A self-consistent computer simulation model utilizing a ring head and single layer recording medium has been developed to study perpendicular recording. In the model it is assumed that the medium switches uniformly following the volume averaged field. The optimum recording field obtained from the model calculation at various head-medium spacings permits an estimation of head saturation limitations. The roll-off curve, which is the linear superposition of the alternating voltage pulses, is in good agreement with experimental data. The write spacing loss is spacing dependent and is 120d/λ (dB) at contact for a typical recording case. For contact recording the imaging effect is important in the write process. Optimum recording at contact is shown to produce a high overshoot and sharp leading edge in the transition while leaving the magnetization level below the coercivity; this yields an apparent "negative" transition length in terms of the arctangent transition model.