| Patent Number |
Title Of Patent |
Date Issued |
| D301137 |
Stackable housing for computer peripheral components |
May 16, 1989 |
|
| 6850443 |
Wear leveling techniques for flash EEPROM systems |
February 1, 2005 |
| A mass storage system made of flash electrically erasable and programmable read only memory ("EEPROM") cells organized into blocks, the blocks in turn being grouped into memory banks, is managed to even out the numbers of erase and rewrite cycles experienced by the memory banks in order |
| 6771468 |
Slider with high pitch-stiffness air bearing design |
August 3, 2004 |
| A slider utilizes a triple-etch, high pitch-stiffness side rail ABS design. The slider is characterized by a relatively deep shallow recession at its leading edge, which maximizes the cavity area while at the same time increases the pitch angle to achieve DLC pad clearance as required by |
| 6715044 |
Device and method for controlling solid-state memory system |
March 30, 2004 |
| A memory system includes an array of solidstate memory devices which are in communication with and under the control of a controller module via a device bus with very few lines. This forms an integrated-circuit mass storage system which is contemplated to replace a mass storage system su |
| 6594183 |
Wear leveling techniques for flash EEPROM systems |
July 15, 2003 |
| A mass storage system made of flash electrically erasable and programmable read only memory ("EEPROM") cells organized into blocks, the blocks in turn being grouped into memory banks, is managed to even out the numbers of erase and rewrite cycles experienced by the memory banks in order |
| 6281652 |
Method of using two low-resolution DACS for converting high-resolution digital demands into anal |
August 28, 2001 |
| Disclosed is a method in a disk drive that allows the functionality of a single high-resolution DAC to be replicated with a pair of lower-resolution DACs that are operated in a unique manner that provides monotonic behavior and reduces both differential and integral non-linearity. Th |
| 6271604 |
Integrated computer module having a data integrity latch |
August 7, 2001 |
| The invention is an integrated computer module adapted for removable insertion into a docking bay in a host assembly wherein such module includes an enclosure, a main printed circuit board assembly, a module connector for connection to a host connector, a disk drive, and a locking me |
| 6263459 |
On the fly write reallocation |
July 17, 2001 |
| A method for reassigning a defective data site on a disk surface of a disk drive during a write operation. When a write error is detected while writing a data block to a user data site, a write error recovery procedure is performed on the user data site. If the write error recovery proce |
| 6262857 |
Disk drive including a recording surface employing servo zones with banded data zones |
July 17, 2001 |
| A disk drive includes a disk having a disk surface, the disk surface having a plurality of tracks arranged in an embedded servo format. The disk surface includes a plurality of radially-extending user-data regions and a plurality of radially-extending servo-data regions. Each user-data r |
| 6256695 |
Disk drive method of determining SCSI bus state information after a SCSI bus reset condition |
July 3, 2001 |
| The present invention provides a disk drive system employing a method of analyzing disk drive failure wherein a disk drive target controller is logically connected to an initiator on a SCSI bus. The method includes storing SCSI bus state information upon the receipt of a SCSI bus reset |
| 6249393 |
Disk drive having a write condition detector for suspending write operations while a transducer |
June 19, 2001 |
| A disk drive with a write condition detector generates a write condition signal from a reference signal to warn of a high fly write or a low fly write. The reference signal is generated by the disk drive read/write head by reading a reference segment. The write condition detector process |
| 6246346 |
Storage system employing high-rate code with constraint on run length between occurrences of an |
June 12, 2001 |
| A storage system employs a method for encoding a sequence of input data blocks into a sequence of codewords. Each input data block includes a first predetermined number of bits (the data block length). Each codeword includes a second predetermined number of bits (the codeword length). Th |
| 6243223 |
Disk drive with servo burst phasing for improved linearity and off-track performance with a wide |
June 5, 2001 |
| A disk drive has a sampled servo system controller and a disk with a plurality of angularly spaced servo wedges. Each of the servo wedges contains angularly aligned servo burst fields that are radially adjacent to one another and spaced apart by an erase field. In order to eliminate |
| 6223303 |
Disk drive having two tiered defect list comprising marginal and reserved data sectors |
April 24, 2001 |
| The present invention provides a method of operating a disk drive having data sites on a disk for recording data thereon. The disk drive is connectable to a host computer and maintains a defect table comprising defective sites reportable to the host computer. The method includes the |
| 6215616 |
Disk drive spindle motor with wire guide insert |
April 10, 2001 |
| A spindle motor for a disk drive includes a shaft, an upper bearing, a lower bearing, a stator, a hub and wire guide body. The upper bearing surrounds the shaft. The lower bearing surrounds the shaft, is spaced-apart from the upper bearing, and includes an inner race. The stator surr |
| 6208486 |
Spindle motor flange land portion |
March 27, 2001 |
| A disk drive includes a disk drive base, a spindle motor, a first disk and a disk clamp. The rotary hub of the spindle motor includes a generally cylindrically-shaped hub wall and a hub flange including an inner annular surface adjacent to the hub wall, an outer annular surface and a fla |
| 6208477 |
Hard disk drive having a built-in self-test for measuring non-linear signal distortion |
March 27, 2001 |
| In a hard disk drive, a semiconductor chip includes a circuit used in a built-in self test ("BIST") to determine an amplitude of a dibit echo for characterizing nonlinear distortion of a readback signal. Preferably, write precompensation is performed based on results of the BIST to m |
| 6205494 |
Controller with automatic generation of linked list of data transfer descriptors for sequential |
March 20, 2001 |
| A command queuing engine in a target controller ASIC automatically detects sequential commands received from an initiator and generates a linked list of data transfer descriptors for the sequential commands. The data transfer descriptors are automatically processed by the command queuing |
| 6204988 |
Disk drive capable of autonomously evaluating and adapting the frequency response of its servo c |
March 20, 2001 |
| The invention is a method of characterizing the frequency response of the servo control system in a disk drive having a sampled servo system having a sampling rate and a nominal bandwidth, wherein the sampled servo system comprises a plant and a servo controller that controls the plant u |
| 6200441 |
Multiple station vacuum deposition apparatus for texturing a substrate using a scanning beam |
March 13, 2001 |
| A stationary vacuum deposition machine for use in a method for processing substrates to make magnetic hard disks includes a series of stations and a transport. The series of stations includes an entrance station for receiving substrates into the machine and a predetermined station. The |
| 6198590 |
Disk drive employing method of spinning down its spindle motor to reduce the time required for s |
March 6, 2001 |
| A disk drive employs a method of operating a spindle motor to respond to a spin-down command to reduce the time required for subsequently responding to a spin-up command. After receiving the spin-down command, and while the rotor continues to spin in the forward-spin direction, a state m |
| 6198584 |
Disk drive with staggered calibration bursts that are disposably located in data regions and met |
March 6, 2001 |
| A disk drive with a disk having a servo pattern including a special "calibration track" wherein a plurality of staggered calibration burst pairs define null points that are radially shifted from a burst pair centerline by precise, predefined, fractional track amounts to collectively |
| 6195222 |
Disk drive with seek profile selection based on a queued vs. non-queued environment |
February 27, 2001 |
| A disk drive and method of optimizing data access time by selecting a seek profile and/or settle criteria based on a queued or non-queued environment. The disk drive includes an actuator and a servo system, wherein the servo system is directed to move the actuator as a result of an i |
| 6195218 |
Disk drive which efficiently stores zone parameter sets for a plurality of disk surfaces |
February 27, 2001 |
| A disk drive and method which efficiently stores zone parameter sets for a plurality of disk surfaces. The disk drive includes a disk control system and a plurality of disk surfaces. Each disk surface has an associated transducer head in communication with the disk control system for rea |
| 6191909 |
Polling a preamplifier within a disk drive to remotely determine pre-established parametric valu |
February 20, 2001 |
| A system for polling a preamplifier unit to remotely determine pre-established parametric values in a disk drive is disclosed. The disk drive comprises a controller, a preamplifier, and a plurality of transducers. The system for polling the preamplifier comprises means in the control |
| 6185074 |
Inertial latch having an interposer that prevents the head from leaving the ramp load during a s |
February 6, 2001 |
| A disk drive includes a disk drive base, a head stack assembly pivotally coupled to the disk drive base, a ramp load coupled to the disk drive base for parking the head, and an inertial latch. The head stack assembly includes a head and a coil portion coupled to the head, the coil portio |
| 6185067 |
Disk drive with reduced thermal expansion induced disk slip |
February 6, 2001 |
| A spindle motor for a disk drive includes a shaft, an aluminum hub, a bearing, a magnetic steel back iron, and a magnet. The hub includes an axial wall having an inner surface. The back iron has an upper portion and a lower portion. The hub is concentrically position about the shaft such |
| 6181502 |
Faster access time in a disk drive by utilizing increased VCM potential voltage |
January 30, 2001 |
| A disk drive includes a voice coil motor (VCM) and a VCM power source circuit which is coupled to a standard power supply having a fixed voltage. During seek operations the VCM power source circuit provides a boosted voltage, greater than the fixed supply voltage, for the VCM. The VC |
| 6178056 |
Disk drive employing state variable trap registers for providing stored servo and user data stat |
January 23, 2001 |
| A disk drive includes a disk surface having a plurality of tracks arranged in an embedded servo format including servo track segments for storing servo data and data track segments for storing user data. The disk drive includes a read element operative during a user-data read operation f |
| 6175893 |
High bandwidth code/data access using slow memory |
January 16, 2001 |
| A read-only memory is connectable to a microcontroller data bus and address bus and includes memory circuits for storing a sequential array of code words executable by the microcontroller; memory address decoding circuits for selecting one of the array of code words, and circuits for con |
| 6160368 |
Faster spin-down operation in a disk drive by utilizing pulsed braking |
December 12, 2000 |
| A disk drive includes a spindle motor having windings and a spindle motor driver including switching elements connected to the windings. Spin-down instructions are stored in a memory. A microprocessor is responsive to a spin-down command to receive and execute the spin-down instructions. |
| 6151197 |
Water slide suspension assembly having a stiffened vertically offset lift tab |
November 21, 2000 |
| The disk includes a disk recording surface, and the ramp includes a ramp. A head stack assembly of a hard disk drive includes an actuator arm and a suspension assembly attached to the actuator arm. The suspension assembly includes a first elongated region having a distal region and a pla |
| 6151189 |
Disk drive spindle motor with embedded ionizing source for static charge dissipation |
November 21, 2000 |
| A spindle motor for a disk drive includes a shaft, a stator, a hub, an upper bearing, a lower bearing, means for defining a gap and an ionization source. The stator is concentrically positioned about the shaft. The upper and lower bearings rotatably maintain the hub relative to the shaft |
| 6147831 |
Servo track writer having a servo writer positioning arm with a vibration damper and a method of |
November 14, 2000 |
| A servo track writer for a head disk assembly and a method of making the head disk assembly using the servo track writer are disclosed. The head disk assembly includes an enclosure having an opening and a base and an actuator arm coupled to the base and having a servo writer positioning |
| 6145052 |
Disk drive with adaptive pooling for command reordering |
November 7, 2000 |
| A method for selecting a next command to execute from a set of SCSI commands where the commands are gracefully aged and performance of a disk drive is improved. An execution threshold age, a pool threshold age, and an age threshold age are used to determine what command is executed next. |
| 6141175 |
Repeatable runout cancellation in sectored servo disk drive positioning system |
October 31, 2000 |
| A method in a magnetic storage disk drive for independently learning and thereafter canceling repeatable runout that is written to the servo fields of each servo track during the servo writing process. The method does not require a servo writer because the disk drive may independently de |
| 6136403 |
Buffered nitrogenated carbon overcoat for data recording disks and method for manufacturing the |
October 24, 2000 |
| A recording medium on a hard disk is provided that includes a magnetic data recording layer on the disk, a hydrogenated carbon buffer layer over the data recording layer, and a nitrogenated carbon overcoat layer over the hydrogenated carbon buffer layer. The composition ratios and thickn |
| 6122135 |
Disk drive with voice coil motor rise time manager |
September 19, 2000 |
| A method to adaptively reduce error introduced by the coil current rise time. A disk drive with a moving arm actuator driven by a voice coil motor is controlled by periodically modeling the coil current rise time. An adjustment to a commanded current value is based on the model of the co |
| 6122133 |
Hybrid method of determining a fractional track position of a read transducer in a hard disk dri |
September 19, 2000 |
| A method used to implement a sampled servo control system in a magnetic disk drive for generating a fractional track portion of a position error signal to correctably maintain the alignment of a read transducer (or associated write transducer) relative to a centerline of one of a plu |
| 6111717 |
Disk drive comprising a programmable preamplifier including a multiplexer for selecting between |
August 29, 2000 |
| A disk drive comprising a plurality of read/write transducers, a programmable preamplifier, and a controller for furnishing control and data signals to the programmable preamplifier and for receiving data signals therefrom, is disclosed. The programmable preamplifier comprising a wri |
| 6105104 |
Method and apparatus for optimizing the data transfer rate to and from a plurality of disk surfa |
August 15, 2000 |
| A method of mapping sequential logical data blocks to multiple disk surfaces. Data blocks are written to a predetermined number of adjacent tracks on each surface before performing a head switch to write data on another surface. The predetermined number of tracks are written on each |
| 6104153 |
Disk drive employing method of spinning down its spindle motor to reduce the time required for s |
August 15, 2000 |
| A disk drive employs a method of operating a spindle motor to respond to a spin-down command to reduce the time required for spinning down and subsequently spinning up the spindle motor. The disk drive is connectable to a power supply having a fixed DC voltage. The spindle motor includes |
| 6101876 |
Method of centering a disk pack of a disk drive |
August 15, 2000 |
| A method of centering a disk pack on a base rotatably supporting the disk pack includes performing a series a steps while the disk pack is rotating. A reference timing signal is generated. A first imbalance in the rotating disk pack is detected, and a first imbalance signal is produced. |
| 6101065 |
Disk drive with seek profile selection based on read/write operation |
August 8, 2000 |
| A method for reducing data access time in a disk drive. The disk drive includes an actuator and a servo controller. The servo controller commands the actuator to perform a seek from a current position to a target position using a profile of command effort to the actuator. The profile |
| 6094707 |
Method for memory allocation in a disk drive employing a chunk array and identifying a smallest |
July 25, 2000 |
| The disk drive provides a method of adaptively managing a cache segment divided into chunks by defining an unavailable data type to be stored in an element of a chunk array which indicates that the chunk is not available, and defining an available data type to be stored in an element |
| 6094020 |
Disk drive utilizing Bemf of spindle motor to increase VCM voltage during seeks |
July 25, 2000 |
| A disk drive is connectable to a power supply having a fixed DC voltage. The disk drive includes a voice coil motor (VCM) and a spindle motor having a plurality of windings and a rotor rotatable at a variable spin-rate. A spindle motor driver is coupled to the fixed DC voltage and at |
| 6092150 |
Method for memory allocation in a disk drive employing a chunk array and identifying a first ava |
July 18, 2000 |
| The disk drive provides a method of adaptively managing a cache segment divided into chunks by defining an unavailable data type to be stored in an element of a chunk array which indicates that the chunk is not available, and defining an available data type to be stored in an element |
| 6092149 |
Disk drive cache system using a dynamic priority sequential stream of data segments continuously |
July 18, 2000 |
| A magnetic disk drive with a caching system includes an intelligent interface to communicate with a host, a magnetic disk and a cache memory to buffer data transferred to and from the host. The caching system maximizes drive performance based on past access history. The caching syste |
| 6091564 |
Disk drive with calibration bursts that are recorded on a spiral and method of recording the sam |
July 18, 2000 |
| A disk drive with a disk having a servo pattern including a special "calibration track" wherein a plurality of calibration burst pairs are recorded on a spiral centerline to define null points that are radially shifted from a burst pair centerline by precise, predefined or subsequent |
| 6081447 |
Wear leveling techniques for flash EEPROM systems |
June 27, 2000 |
| A mass storage system made of flash electrically erasable and programmable read only memory ("EEPROM") cells organized into blocks, the blocks in turn being grouped into memory banks, is managed to even out the numbers of erase and rewrite cycles experienced by the memory banks in order |
