Linear actuator for precise track following

A new air bearing linear actuator with a Voice Coil Motor (VCM) was investigated for a precise head track following in an Hard Disk Drive (HDD) magnetic recording tester system. The actuator has a servo bandwidth of two times as wide as that of a conventional HDD, due to a high stiffness without any friction. A low-pass filter was introduced to precisely monitor the step response behavior by reducing the relatively large noise of the used optical fiber sensor. The effect of the low-pass filter was investigated comparing with the other method. Track following accuracy was also tested by using a conventional 2.5-inch hard disk drive. The head installed on the actuator could follow on a track by using Position Error Signal (PES) from the servo pattern. When a Double Metal In Gap (D-MIG) head of 4 μm track-width was loaded on a disk rotating at 4200rpm, the tracking error could be compressed down to one-twentieth of the track-width. The tested system did not show any azimuth error of head-tracking due to the linear motion. In conclusion, the air-bearing linear actuator is suitable for a precise track following mechanism of a spin-stand tester for an HDD system.     

Integrated fabrication of electrostatic microactuator for HDD R/W head positioning

We designed an electrostatic actuator which can work with the voice coil motor in a dual-stage servo control system to accurately position the read/write (R/W) head in hard disk drives. An integrated fabrication process for this microactuator has been proposed, considering total fabrication of R/W head and alumina-titanium carbide (AlTiC) slider. Adhesive bonding technique using photoresist SU-8 was selected for wafer bonding between silicon and AlTiC. A microactuator prototype has been fabricated by the proposed process. The stroke of the microactuator has been measured during the static testing.     

Thermal actuator for accurate positioning read/write element in hard disk drive

Flying height control (TFC) sliders with thermal actuation, which make it possible to control head disk spacing, have been introduced in commercial products for compensating the flying height loss and reducing the risk of head disk contacts, thus to increase the bit density (Gupta et al. in ASME J Tribol 123:380–387, 2001; Juang and Bogy in ASME J Tribol 129:570–578, 2007; Kurita et al. in Microsyst Technol 12:369–375, 2006; Shiramatsu et al. in IEEE Trans Magn 42:2513–2515, 2006). However, with the increasing of areal density, it is also necessary to increase the track density. To increase track density, it is required to improve the performances of head positioning system in terms of fast transition from one track to another (track seeking), fast and accurate settling, and precise track following of the target track. Dual-actuator systems (Choe in A thermal driven micro actuator for hard disk drive. In: Proceedings of the APMRC 2010, Nov 10–12, 2010, Singapore, 2010; Bain et al. in Electrothermal actuator for hard disk drive application. In: Proceedings of the APMRC 2010, Nov. 10–12, 2010, Singapore, 2010; Furukawa et al. in Fabrication and test of thermal actuator. In: ISPS 2011, Jun. 13–14, Santa Clara, CA, USA, 2011) have been proposed to meet these requirements. These dual-actuator systems consist of a voice-coil-motor (VCM) as a first-stage actuator and a transducer (piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic and thermal) as a second-stage actuator. The second-stage actuator could be designed to actuate the movement of suspension (suspension driven), slider (slider driven) or head element (head driven). Most of reported dual-actuator systems were made to be suspension driven or slider driven. Recently, Choe by (A thermal driven micro actuator for hard disk drive. In: Proceedings of the APMRC 2010, Nov. 10–12, 2010, Singapore, 2010) and Bain et al. by (Electrothermal actuator for hard disk drive application. In: Proceedings of the APMRC 2010, Nov. 10–12, 2010, Singapore, 2010) reported to use thermal actuators for driving head movement. They attained a thermal transient of less than 10?μs using 2-D finite element simulation. Using thermal actuators to accurately position read/write element could be a promising technology for mass production for future HDD. This kind of control theme was termed as thermal positioning control (TPC). The objective of TPC actuator design is to achieve large actuation stroke as well as increase frequency bandwidth. In our studies, the design procedure may involve several steps: (1) Fundamental studies with simple TPC slider structure by finite element simulations to explore the feasibility of TPC actuation and estimate working frequency range. Also we may be able to find out the problems which induced by TPC actuator. (2) Prototyped TPC slider, and tested its frequency characteristics to confirm the feasibility and achievability of TPC actuation. (3) Increases TPC actuation stroke and frequency bandwidth by improving TPC slider structures and servo control schemes. This paper explores the feasibility studies of TPC slider by finite element simulation. The principle and structural modeling of slider with TPC heater was first introduced. Then static–static simulation was carried out to study the steady deformation displacement at read/write element and transient analysis was conducted to estimate the deformation displacement response. It was found that 7?nm deformation stroke at read/write element could be attained at steady state with 50?mW input power, and the deformation displacement was about 1.7?nm after power was applied to TPC heater 1.5?ms (frequency of 1?kHz based on first order delay system). Meanwhile, it was found that protrusion on the air bearing surface (ABS) becomes a problem for the slider’s flying performance, thus the ABS design was improved to reduce protrusion’s effect, and cross-talk effect between TFC and TPC actuators was then investigated.     

A thermal inkjet printhead with a monolithically fabricated nozzleplate and self-aligned ink feed hole

A monolithic thermal inkjet printhead has been developed and demonstrated to operate successfully by combining monolithic growing of a nozzle plate on the silicon substrate and electrochemical etching of silicon for an ink feed hole. For the monolithic fabrication, a multiexposure and single development (MESD) technique and Ni electroplating are used to form cavities, orifices, and the nozzle plate. Electrochemical etching, as a back-end process, is applied to form an ink feed hole through the substrate, which is accurately aligned with the frontside pattern without any backside mask. The etch rate is nearly proportional to the current density up to 50 μm/min. Experiments with a 50-μm-diameter nozzle show ink ejection up to the operating frequency of 11 kHz with an average ink dot diameter of about 110 μm for 0.3-A, 5-μs current pulses     

Released Si microstructures fabricated by deep etching and shallowdiffusion

A novel etch-diffusion process is developed for fabricating high-aspect-ratio Si structures for microsensors. This is accomplished by first dry etching narrow gap Si microstructures using an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) source, followed by a shallow B diffusion to fully convert the etched microstructures to p⁺⁺ layer. Microstructures up to 40 μm deep with 2-μm-wide gaps were etched with a Cl₂ plasma generated using the ECR source. Vertical profile and smooth morphology were obtained at low pressure. A shallow B diffusion at 1175°C for 5.5 h. was then carried out to convert the 40-μm-thick resonant elements to p⁺⁺ layer. A second dry etching step was used to remove the thin p⁺⁺ layer around the bottom of the resonant elements, followed by bonding to glass and selective wet etch. Released high-aspect-ratio Si microsensors with thicknesses of 35 μm have been demonstrated. At atmospheric pressure, only 5 V_dc driving voltage is needed for 2.5 μm vibration amplitude, which is less than the 10 V_dc required to drive 12-μm-thick resonators fabricated by conventional dissolved wafer process     

Robust design of a microactuator for HDD head positioning

With rapid growth in areal recording density of hard disk drive (HDD), ultra-high precise head positioning and higher servo bandwidth are required. Dual-stage actuation system using MEMS actuator has been considered as one promising precise positioning solution. The microacatuator we designed has a low in-plane resonant frequency, which limits the servo bandwidth and needs compensation by servo control system. However, this resonant frequency may shift from its mean value during MEMS fabrication process. This shift adds difficulty to effective compensation for servo control. In this paper, a robust solution is proposed to minimize microactuator’s resonant frequency shift so that its first resonance frequency is insensitive to the effects of sources of processing variations and then effective compensation for high servo bandwidth can be achieved.     

Investigation of the electromechanical variables of the spindle motor and the actuator of a HDD due to positioning and free fall

This research investigates the electromechanical variables of a spindle motor and an actuator of an operating hard disk drive (HDD) due to the positioning and the free-fall of a HDD. Magnetic fields of a brushless DC motor and a voice coil motor are determined by the time-stepping finite element equation of the Maxwell equation and the driving circuit equation. The pressure of the fluid dynamic bearings (FDBs) is determined by solving the finite element equation of the Reynolds equation to calculate the reaction force and the friction torque. Dynamic equations of the rotating disk-spindle, actuator, and stationary bodies of a HDD are derived from the Newton–Euler’s equation. The speed control of the rotating disk-spindle and the servo control of the actuator are included to describe the head positioning between the rotating disk and the head. The simulation is performed to investigate the electromechanical variables of the spindle motor and the actuator due to the positioning and the free-fall of a HDD. This research shows that the positioning and the free-fall of a HDD change the electromechanical variables of the spindle motor and the actuator of an operating HDD, and that monitoring their electromechanical variables may identify the positioning and the free-fall of a HDD without using extra sensors.     

Dynamics simulation of MEMS device embedded hard disk drive systems

Currently, hard disk drives (HDD) use rotating disks to store digital data and magnetic recording heads are flying on the disk to read/write data. The recording heads are mounted on a slider–suspension assembly, which makes heads move from one track to another on the disk. The heads movement is controlled by close-loop feedback servo systems. It is well known that dynamic behaviors of head–slider–suspension-assembly (HSA) systems are of great influence on the track per inch capacity of HDD [1, 2]. As the problem is structurally complex, it is usually investigated using experimental methods or finite element simulation models [3]. Furthermore, the dual-stage servo system has been commonly considered as one promising solution to increase the servo bandwidth of the recording positioning system for high TPI HDDS. In particular, MEMS device embedded systems are superior to others in batch-fabrication. However, this dual-stage system has also resulted in more difficulties in predicting HDD dynamic performance. This paper presents the study of the problem using the macromodeling simulation approach. It applies efficient FEM based sub-structuring syntheses (SSS) [4] and fast boundary element method (BEM) approaches incorporated with system dynamics technology to investigate the dynamic characteristics of MEMS actuator embedded HSA systems for HDD.This research is funded by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research of Singapore, Strategic Research Program. Also, the authors would like to thanks Miss Jia Wenhui, who is a Research Student with ECE Department at National University of Singapore, Mr. Lim Boon Buan, the former research engineer with Data Storage Institute, for the MEMS actuator modeling and analytical work.     

A pneumatic air table realized by micro-EDM

This paper presents a one-dimensional (1-D) pneumatic actuator fabricated by combining several micromachining technologies such as microelectrodischarge machining (micro-EDM) as well as isotropic and anisotropic wet etching. Unlike the existing pneumatic actuators, which usually convey the object by means of friction, this device employs the dynamic pressure of inclined driving jets in order to enhance the horizontal transportation performance. Typical slider speeds of up to 5 cm/s can be obtained. Comparisons between different types of sliders are presented. By an appropriate patterning of the slider bottom surface, the speed could be increased by 50%-60%. Similarly, a maximum tangential force of 20 μN (equivalent shear stress: 2.2 μN/mm²) was obtained using this dynamic pressure concept. The latter is about two times larger than that of a slider with a smooth surface     

A push–pull multi-layered piggyback PZT actuator

 To increase the recording density of hard disk drives (HDDs), we developed a push–pull multi-layered piggyback PZT actuator that enables fine positioning by a dual-stage servo system. This PZT actuator consists of 31-mode push–pull multi-layered PZT strips and a head suspension. It generates a 1.4-μm effective radial head displacement at 5 V. This displacement is twice that of conventional piggyback actuators. The main resonance frequency of the actuator is higher than 9 kHz, its lifetime is longer than five years, and it has a self-latch property. These features mean that the developed actuator can meet all the requirements for implementation in HDD servo systems, including a track density of 100 kTPI (kilo-tracks per inch). The actuator was implemented in two types of HDDs (A-type and B-type), which reduced the repeatable and non-repeatable positioning errors (by 40 to 45% and 28 to 34%, respectively). Received: 25 July 2001/Accepted: 11 December 2001     

Active-head sliders using piezoelectric thin films for flying height control

This paper describes design and fabrication of a MEMS-based active-head slider using a PZT thin film for flying height control in hard disk drives. A piezoelectric cantilever integrated in the air bearing slider is used to adjust the flying height individually. An air bearing surface (ABS) geometry that minimizes the aerodynamic lift force generated beneath the head has been designed based on the molecular gas film lubrication (MGL) theory. The sliders with PZT actuators were fabricated monolithically by silicon micromachining process. Performance of the actuator was tested by using an optical surface profiler. Furthermore, the fabricated slider was mounted on a suspension and the flying height of the slider above a spinning disk has been measured by multiple wavelength interferometry. Change in the head-disk spacing has been successfully confirmed by applying voltage to the actuator.     

Hinge pivot for disk drive

This paper discusses the findings of a hinge pivot for use in hard disk drives (HDD). The actuator assembly in a HDD is supported by a pivot cartridge and controlled by a servo system to perform seek and track following operations for data recording. The cartridge is composed of a pair of pre-loaded ball bearings. Due to the demand for thin hard disk drives and hence, the need to reduce the height of the actuator assembly, a hinge pivot is proposed to replace the set of bearings. The shaft of the pivot is connected to the sleeve with thin hinges made of ultra-high heat-resistant polyamide film, such as Upilex. Measurement showed that the hinge pivot did not exhibit the nonlinear effects during low frequency actuation, such was inherent for ball bearing pivots. Experiment also showed that at least a million life cycles can be achieved without any performance degradation.     

Design and testing of track-following controllers for dual-stage servo systems with PZT actuated suspensions

 This paper discusses the design and testing of two track-following controllers for dual-stage servo systems in hard disk drives. The first controller is designed using the μ-synthesis multivariable robust optimal controller design methodology. The second is designed using classical single-input-single-output (SISO) frequency shaping design techniques, based on sensitivity transfer functions decoupling of the dual-stage actuator. The controllers were implemented and tested on a disk drive with a PZT actuated suspension based dual-stage servo system. The position error signal (PES) for the servo system was obtained by measuring the slider displacement using an LDV and injecting simulated track runout. In the experiment, both designs achieved a track-mis-registration (TMR) less than 10 nm. Received: 25 July 2001/Accepted: 1 November 2001     

Suppressing sensitivity hump in HDD dual-stage servo systems

In Hard disk drive (HDD) single-stage servo system that uses voice coil motor as the sole actuator, the sensitivity hump appears unavoidable due to the Bode’s integral theorem, resulting in amplification of disturbances at frequencies higher than the open-loop gain crossover frequency. This paper studies the sensitivity transfer function limitation in HDD dual-stage servo system. A compensation method for the micro-actuator dynamics, termed as “near-perfect modeling” (NPM), is proposed to generate an effective compensated plant model with zero relative degree in order to suppress the sensitivity hump of the dual-stage servo loop. Therefore, high-frequency disturbances would not be amplified by the servo loop. Experimental results show that the sensitivity hump of dual-stage servo loop can be reduced to very close to 0 dB without amplification of the corresponding measurement noise.     

Head-positioning control system using thermal actuator in hard disk drives

In this paper, we propose a head-positioning control system with a thermal actuator in hard disk drives (HDDs). The frequency response of the thermal actuator showed that the thermal actuator system has no mechanical resonant mode. Therefore, this head-positioning system with a thermal actuator can control the head-position beyond the major mechanical resonances caused by a voice coil motor (VCM) or suspensions. In this study, the system was a dual-stage actuator system; the first actuator was a VCM, and the second was a thermal actuator. Simulation results for a track-following control in an HDD demonstrated the validity of the proposed method.     

Silicon micromachining using in situ DC microplasmas

This paper reports on the generation of spatially confined plasmas and their application to silicon etching. The etching is performed using SF₆ gas and dc power applied between thin-film electrodes patterned on the silicon wafer to be etched. The electrodes also serve as a mask for the etching. The typical operating pressure and power density are in the range of 1-20 Torr and 1-10 W/cm², respectively. The plasma confinement can be varied from <100 μm to >1 cm by varying the electrode area, operating pressure, and power. High power densities can be achieved at moderate currents because the electrode areas are small. Etch rates of 4-17 μm/min., which enable through-wafer etching and varying degrees of anisotropy, have been achieved. The etch rate increases with power density, whereas the etch rate per unit power density increases with operating pressure. Scaling effects are explored for varying sized mask openings. Plasma resistance measurements and electric field modeling are used to provide an initial assessment of the microplasmas     

Active flying-height control slider using MEMS thermal actuator

Today’s head/disk interface design has a wide flying height distribution due to manufacturing tolerances, environmental variations, and write-induced thermal protrusion. To reduce the magnetic spacing loss caused by these effects, we developed an active head slider with a nano-thermal actuator. The magnetic spacing of these sliders can be controlled in situ during drive operations. After simulating the heat transfer in the slider to obtain the thermal deformation of the air-bearing surface, we fabricated a thermal actuator using thin-film processing. An evaluation done using a read/write tester showed a linear reduction in the magnetic height as electric power was applied to the actuator. The actuator’s stroke was 2.5 nm per 50 mW with a time constant of 1 ms. There was no significant impact on the reliability of the read element.     

Improvement of slider off-track vibration through design parameter modifications of a compatible FDB spindle system

Recently, the hard disk drive (HDD) industry has tried to use a compatible spindle system regardless of the number of disks because of the resulting cost reduction and standardization of components. The center of gravity (CG) location predominantly affects the disk and slider off-track vibration, which is why the rocking mode of a spindle system is affected by the CG. Any changes to the CG affect the operational vibration of the spindle system. In a compatible fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) spindle system, changing the number of disks may alter the CG. Nevertheless, research into the compatibility of FDB designs has not been undertaken. In this study, FDB design parameters were selected to reduce the slider off-track vibration with variations in the CG considering a compatible spindle system. First, a verified finite element (FE) model of a spindle system was constructed. The amplitude and frequency of the rocking mode were compared between a one-disk spindle system and a two-disk spindle system using the FE model, considering the relationship between the CG location, which is changed by the number of disks, and the location of the upper and lower journal bearings. HDD prototypes were then manufactured using the improved design. Based on the manufactured spindle system, the variations in the rocking mode characteristics and slider off-track vibration were measured and operational vibration tests were performed to verify the effect of the number of disks on the slider off-track vibration. An improved FDB spindle design was developed with a reduced rocking mode, and a compatible spindle system was proposed.     

Shock analysis of non-operating hard disk drives based on a multibody dynamic formulation

Dropping, striking, or bouncing a hard disk drive (HDD) against a hard surface can damage it internally without external evidence of damage. Contact with a hard ground will lift the slider off the disk surface and then slap back on the surface. A drive that is subjected to this type of shock may fail on initial use or the reliability of the drive may degrade over time. Therefore, industry has a lot of interest on the shock conditions that cause a slider to lift off the disk surface. Finite element software such as ANSYS/LS-DYNA is often used to analyze this shock problem. However, this method consumes a great amount of time. It is also difficult to perform design parameter studies because it requires re-analysis of the model of the entire HDD system when certain design variables are changed. This paper presents a flexible multi-body dynamics formulation to analyze the shock problem of non-operating HDDs. Governing equations of motion of the voice coil motor (VCM)–actuators assembly and the disks–spindle system are derived using a Lagrangian formulation. By introducing constraint equations between the slider and the disk surface, the shock response of the whole HDD system has been obtained. Numerical results show that the method is reasonable and the acceleration amplitude which makes the slider lift off can be determined in a significantly shorter time than by the conventional approach. Finally, the effect of drive parameters on shock resistance, such as shock duration and slider resting location are analyzed.     

Efficient simulation of hard disk drive operational shock response using model order reduction

The complex structure, coupled mechanical and fluidic energy domains, and inherent nonlinearity of air bearing between slider and disk involved in the hard disk drive (HDD) are normally presented as a large scale problem which will result in very heavy computational costs in terms of intensive computation and time consuming for HDD research communities and industries to carry out the transient dynamic simulation for HDD design verification, performance analysis, and optimization by using the traditional full-order models, such as finite element model (FEM). This paper presents a method of application of model order reduction (MOR) technique to dramatically reduce the computation time for HDD transient shock performance analysis while capturing the behaviors of original problem faithfully. The reduced models are obtained by performing MOR directly to the FEMs through Krylov subspace and Arnoldi algorithm. The transient operational shock response results of the reduced models of a head suspension assembly (HSA) subjected to half-sine shock pulse demonstrate that the reduced models can dramatically reduce total computation by at least three orders and have very good agreement with those simulated from the original large problem by full-order FEM.