A new high density magnetoresistive tape head

An 8-track magnetic tape head for high-frequency, high-density applications is described. It includes an unshielded magnetoresistive read head and two thin-film record heads for bidirectional operation with write verification. The MR sensors are biased by specially shaped thin-film permanent magnets (PM) that provide fields along both sensor axes to linearize output and eliminate Barkhausen noise. Nearly all films in the head are deposited using dry processes. Deposition conditions for the PM have been optimized to produce a high-coercivity, high-remanence isotropic film. The final head assembly has a contour that utilizes longitudinal slots to achieve intimate contact with low head-to-tape pressure. The associated data channel uses both read and write equalization to obtain the desired output pulse shape from the unshielded head     

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     

Extremely high bit density recording with single-pole perpendicular head

Since perpendicular magnetic recording is free from recording demagnetization, high-density recording up to the intrinsic limit of a recording medium is possible. This prediction was verified experimentally in a flexible disk system using a single-pole head and a Co-Cr/Ni-Fe double-layer medium. We could record and reproduce signals up to 680KFRPI. The recording bit length at the highest density was of the order of the Co-Cr columnar diameter.     

Media for high density magnetic recording

Longitudinal recording is limited at high bit densities by recording demagnetization, self-demagnetization, and adjacent-bit demagnetization, which occur during the writing-demagnetization processes. To minimize these adverse effects it becomes necessary to resort to extreme scaling of the media parameters and their thickness, with the consequence of greatly increasing the difficulty of fabrication and the cost of such optimized media. Pure perpendicular recording circumvents these writing and demagnetization problems because of the strong head coupling of a single pole head with a double layer medium, positive interaction between adjacent bits, and low self-demagnetization at high bit densities. Therefore, it does not require any extreme scaling of the media magnetic parameters and their thickness. Of great interest, at least for the next several years, are the quasi-perpendicular particulate media which can support perpendicular magnetization. These include the isotropic, high-squareness media, and oriented perpendicular media employing particles with uniaxial crystalline or shape anisotropies. The attractiveness of these media derives from their excellent recording performance and from the fact that they preserve the existing head/media interface and they utilize existing coating facilities which should reflect favorably on their cost. In this paper the advantages and disadvantages of the various media under development for high density magnetic recording are compared, and predictions are made for their potential application in future systems.     

Position sensing for high track density recording

Progress towardhigher digital areal densities is related to the data track position sensing accuracy obtainable in future disk drives. In most systems available, position sensing is done remotely from the data track and subject to different dimensional stability conditions. To obtain higher track densities, position sensing reference information must be moved near the data track. Several techniques are available to embed reference information in the data track. All the techniques described have one of two basic principles of operation. One method uses comparison of reference signal amplitudes and the second method uses arrival time differences of reference signals. The time method is relatively unknown but offers the designer some new alternatives. This paper describes an overview of several methods. Relationships are derived to relate the influence of noise on both basic methods. Linearity, relative hardware simplicity, and track capture range are also discussed. It is our conclusion that the Amplitude or Tri-Bit method offers the greatest hardware simplicity, but is limited by noise and non-linearity at high track densities. The time dependent or Chevron method requires two data channels, but offers a relatively higher noise immunity, better linearity, and higher data capacity.     

Media requirements and recording physics for high density magneticrecording

Relevant aspects concerning the ultimate achievable recording densities for particulate as well as for thin-film media are discussed. This review covers the entire range starting from micromagnetics of individual single domain particles, moving on to their magnetic behavior in a particle assembly under particular consideration of the structure being actually obtained in the process of manufacturing recording media, and finally embarking on an outline of recording physics. These considerations are not only carried out for longitudinally and perpendicularly oriented recording media but also for media having an arbitrary orientation of the easy axis of magnetization. All aspects are discussed and illustrated for the first commercially available thin-film medium on a flexible substrate, which is the metal evaporated tape, i.e., the obliquely deposited Co-Ni-O layer for the Hi8 video system     

Corrosion-resisting Co-Pt thin film medium for high density recording

This paper describes a new material medium for high density longitudinal recording. Sputtered Co-Pt thin films will be shown to have excellent corrosion resistance and magnetic properties. Co-Pt thin films do not need a thick overcoat like plated Co-Ni-P films do, and have higher remanent flux density than ferrite thin films. Co1-xPtx(X=0-0.60) thin films prepared by r.f. diode sputtering have a maximum Hc value near X=20. The Hc, Bs and squareness, for 20 at.% Pt film are 1,100 Oe, 12,000 G and 0.80-0.90, respectively, at 0.1 μm film thickness. These values are not changed over 1-15 Watt/cm²power densities, corresponding to 6-85nm/min deposition rates. Films with more than 28 at.% Pt have no Bs change after immersion in water for over one month, indicating that the films are passive by this test, at least. Ni additions improve magnetic and corrosion properties. There is no Bs change for Co0.070Ni0.010Pt0.020films after immersion in water for over one month. Finally, 51 KFRPI linear recording density was obtained, at D50, using a Co0.70Ni0.10Pt0.20thin film disc with a 0.46 μm gap length head and a 0.12 μm head-medium spacing.     

Unshielded magnetoresistive heads in very high-density recording

Unshielded magnetoresistive (UMR) heads provide very high signal levels and low noise but, because of their relatively large element height and an insensitive "dead zone" at the sensor edges, they have poor resolution. As a consequence, the signal diminishes dramatically as the recorded density increases and may be as much as 30 dB or a factor of 30 down at very high density. Various techniques have been used to increase the resolution and reduce the "peak-to-bandedge" ratio but they all reduce the bandedge signal as well and hence tend to lower the signal-to-noise ratio. We have found that a peak-to-bandedge ratio of more than 30 dB can be equalized and hence the standard UMR described by Hunt can be used to advantage in very high-density recording. This report describes results obtained with a UMR head reproducing 80 kFCI (3150 FC/mm) signals recorded on Kodak Isomax tape. Bandedge signal and low-density distortion were plotted versus bias field. Surprisingly, maximum high-density signal and minimum distortion occur at about the same bias field. Electronic, thermal, and magnetic noise were measured and tape-noise-limited performance was obtained. Equalized signals from a pseudo-random data sequence were examined with a transition interval analyzer as well as by eye pattern photograph. The transitions were well separated, and the eye pattern was well defined in both phase and amplitude.     

A new W-shaped single-pole head and a high density flexible disk perpendicular magnetic recording system

A new single-pole head with no auxiliary pole was developed for perpendicular magnetic recording. The head is called WSP head (W-shaped Single Pole head) because the head has a W-shaped side core which contributes to increase the recording and reproducing sensitivitiy. The head field of the new head has the same distribusion as that of an auxiliary pole head[1]. The recording and reproducing sensitivity of the head is equal to or higher than that of a ring-type video head. The head eliminates mechanical problems which prevent its application in perpendicular magnetic recording because we can locate the head on one side of the recording medium. As a possible application of the WSP head, a 3 1/2-inch flexible disk recording system was constructed. A linear recording density of the flexible disk system was 65.5 kbits/inch. This density is equivalent to 8 times that of the existing high-density 3 1/2-inch micro-floppy and 11 times that of a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. In termes of information storage, this density gives a 4 megabyte unformated capacity on one side of a 3 1/2-inch flexible disk. The overwrite signal-to-noise ratio was greater than 30 dB and the peakshift displacement was less than 10 % at the linear dinsity of 65.5 kbits/inch.     

The promise of new particulate media for high density recording

The superiority of perpendicular recording derives from the very low demagnetization at high bit densities, and from the nearly perfect writing process when a single pole head is used in combination with a double layer medium. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to record very high densities in the longitudinal recording mode by scaling down all the critical parameters to extremely small values. However, such extreme scaling will very likely be accompanied by some very difficult problems from the point of view of media imperfections, defects, yields and costs. The power of perpendicular recording derives in part from the ability to attain these very high bit densities without resort to extreme scaling of the critical system parameters. There is little doubt that in the long run perpendicular recording will predominate because of its superior performance derived from the advantages stated above. For the next several years, however, we have to look to new and improved particulate media (to satisfy the majority of the demands) which can be fabricated by using existing large capacity continuous web coating facilities. The best choice for satisfying the requirements of these tape-related large volume applications is to utilize the new particulate media which support a large degree of perpendicular magnetization (isotropic-high squareness, and perpendicular anisotropy particulate dispersions) rather than employing very high coercivity longitudianally optimized particulate media.     

Efficient moment-method solution for the centered shielded magnetoresistive head

We have solved the field equations for a magnetoresistive shielded head by a Galerkin-type moment method (MM), where the basis functions are chosen to satisfy exactly the edge condition at the head's corners. This choice of the basis expansion functions greatly improves the accuracy and convergence rate of the solution compared to those for MM expansion functions that are not singular.     

Analytic three-dimensional response function of a double-shielded magnetoresistive or giant magnetoresistive perpendicular head

Using the Fourier method, we have derived a three-dimensional, fully analytic model of a shielded magnetoresistive or giant magnetoresistive head for perpendicular replay. The head may include side shields. The field and the spectral response function are expressed in closed form. Here, we use the model to show the effect of varying the sensor-shield spacings and the air-bearing-surface-underlayer separation on the field and response of the sensor at high areal density.     

Experimental studies of longitudinal and perpendicular high density recording

Single layer and double layer Co-Cr disks of various coercivities were sputter-deposited on rigid substrates and magnetic parameters measured. Record and playback properties were studied using both ferrite and thin film heads under identical system environments. A well optimized Ni-Co plated longitudinal disk was used as a benchmark throughout this investigation for direct comparison. With the objective of using "off the shelf" ring heads to bring up the perpendicular recording technology on rigid substrates, it was found that the performance of both our preliminary single and double layer Co-Cr perpendicular disks were at least as good as the well optimized longitudinal disk. The double layer disks have an added advantage of lower write current. Signal processing via Hilbert transform using both rectangular and Hamming windows was also studied and applied to the output waveforms.     

Considerations for applying solid state sensors to high density magnetic disc recording

To compete with optical recording densities of 10⁷or greater bits per square centimeter, equal magnetic disc areal densities must be achieved. Based on signal to noise considerations, inductive sensing of magnetic transitions written on magnetic media must give way to solid state magnetic sensors. There are fundamental considerations involved with implementing solid state sensors as read heads. These considerations embrace the basic sensor characteristics of size, resolution, sensitivity, signal to noise ratio and frequency response. Other equally important considerations involve packaging and head-wear resulting from head-media proximity demanded by the nature of the field to be sensed from the media. Finally, the solutions to these considerations must be simple and inexpensive.     

Q.P., an improved code for high density digital recording

This paper describes a new digital recording code format, Quadra-Phase (QP), designed for high density applications. QP is well suited for use on bandpass channels, such as a tape recorder channel, because its frequency response spectra matches the recording channel. This code is described and compared with other common PCM codes. The encoding and decoding processes are presented, and eye-patterns and spectra of QP and other codes are shown. QP achieves the same packing performance as NRZ, without the need for very low frequency channel response.     

Magnetic scan head for high-frequency recording

A stationary magnetic head scans the width of a record magnetically, enabling successive lines of video information to be recorded on a slowly moving tape. The head contains a large number of laminations. All except one of these are blocked from transducing action with the tape by currents through sweep windings. As the sweep currents are changed, every lamination becomes active in succession. For playback, such a head operates on a magnetic-modulator principle which is sensitive to flux rather than to its rate-of-change.     

An experimental, multilevel, high density disk recording system

Communication technology has been applied to a magnetic disk recording channel to achieve up to a fourfold increase in linear bit density as compared to conventional binary recording. Among the techniques incorporated were digital data transmission by Class IV Partial-Response signaling (Interleaved NRZI), recording channel pre-emphasis, equalization and filtering, and periodic amplitude sampling of the data signal. The magnetic recording channel was linearized using very high frequency a.c. bias, which also served simultaneously to erase old data. This enabled multilevel recording and the addition of a pilot tone for timing recovery. System block diagrams are presented together with a discussion of the optimization procedure and attained system performance.