Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/ – Input/output data processing – Peripheral configuration
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-12
2001-06-19
Shin, Christopher B. (Department: 2782)
Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/
Input/output data processing
Peripheral configuration
C360S097010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06249824
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not Available
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention is a magnetic data storage fixed hard disk drive that uses stationary Microhead Array Chips in place of conventional “Flying-Heads”, conventional “Rotary Voice-Coil Actuators”, or other conventional “Servo-Tracking” mechanisms. Every “Microhead Array Chip” has a minimum of one thousand or a maximum of four billion individual and addressable microhead read and write data-transducers built into it. The hard disk drive unit assemblies using the Microhead Array Chip could have as few as two or as many as twenty-eight Microhead Array Chips installed within each hard disk drive unit assembly. The Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive unit assemblies will have at least one storage disk-platter with two disk-platter data-surfaces containing a multiplicity of concentric data-tracks, which are rotated at a substantially constant angular velocity.
In addition, Microhead Array Chips are installed using specially designed circuit boards. These specially designed circuit boards are used to position a Microhead Array Chip into a stationary fixed location over each one of two disk-platter's data-surfaces. The multitude of Induction Channel Coils and Magnetoresistor microheads located inside the Microhead Array Chips are design to be linearly positioned with a location across the top center length of an entire Microhead Array Chip. While disk-platter, radial-width determines the total-length of the Microhead Array Chips that are installed into Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive unit-assemblies. Therefore, the length of the Microhead Array Chips will vary with different disk drive data-platter sizes and hard disk drive designs.
Furthermore, the total number of microheads within a Microhead Array Chip's “Microhead Array” will determine the total number of available tracks on and across it's hard disk data-platter's data-surface (i.e. 65,000 microheads would equal 65,000 cylinder/tracks). Moreover, a Microhead Array of sixty-five thousand micron sized microheads would measure about “2.358” inches in length, giving a hard disk drive using the Microhead Array Chip's design a 3.5-inch hard disk drive form-factor. All Microhead Array Chips installed into a hard disk drive unit assembly are stationary and positioned approximately one-micron above and oriented perpendicular to the hard disk drive's data-platter data-surfaces. The microheads contained within a Microhead Array would also have a fixed microhead-to-microhead distance of one-micron. Moreover, a distance that is measured from a microhead's Magnetic-Flux Concentration Tip centerline to the microhead's Magnetic-Flux Concentration Tip centerline that is linearly next in line. Every microhead located within a Microhead Array will also have a head-gap distance of “0.5” microns. Furthermore, these measurements are a-typical for every Microhead Array Chip that is installed in a hard disk drive unit assembly. In addition, standard (CMOS) or “Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor” lithography, etching, and masking techniques are used to manufacture the Microhead Array Chips containing the previously mentioned microhead arrays.
Furthermore, as demonstrated in prior art, conventional Flying-Head assemblies (i.e., sometimes called a Head Stack Assembly) are simultaneously moved to or from various data-track locations during the execution of a host-requested read or write-data disk operation. Conventional technologies will use a Rotary Voice-Coil Actuator or what is sometimes called a “Rotary Positioner” to accomplish these track to track movements. However, during a Microhead Array Chip's host-requested read or write-data disk operation, the mechanical movement of a Microhead Array Chip's microheads to or from a hard disk drive's various data cylinder/track locations is unnecessary. Moreover, because the Microhead Array Chips having a multitude of stationary microheads would already have ready for use one of its stationary microheads already in position at that host-requested data track/cylinder location. Unlike the conventional electromechanical head switching and head-positioning of a Rotary Voice-Coil, the Microhead Array Chips will switch from one-microhead to another electronically.
In addition, a Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive's cylinder/track address-numbers and the Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive's microhead address-numbers are in reality the same address numbers, at least for the purposes of the Microhead Array Chip design they are. For example, when a Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive's “Disk Controller” addresses a single stationary microhead within a selected Microhead Array Chip's Microhead Array, during a host-requested disk operation, the previously mentioned Disk Controller is not only selecting a microhead with a specific address, but is also selecting the cylinder/track that is located directly underneath its fixed position, which also happens to have the same address number.
Moreover, during a host-requested read or write-data disk operation the Disk Controller will receive from the host-system data-address information. This data-locating data-address information communicates to the Disk Controller which stationary Microhead Array Chip is positioned above the particular cylinder/track data-sector area containing host-requested data or host-requested data-space that is empty. The “Printed Circuit Board” (PCB) containing the Disk Controller used by the Microhead Array Chip design forwards this address information to its “Address Controller” for translation. When a selected Microhead Array Chip receives a translated microhead address from the PCB's Address Controller, the selected Microhead Array Chip responds by latching and decoding that address. The decoding of a microhead's address will cause the selection of a single microhead. Consequently, the selected microhead will have the same physical-location and address-number as the host-requested cylinder/track containing data-sectors of requested data or available for recording data-areas. Furthermore, once the microhead positioned over the host-requested data-area is selected the read or write disk operation is executed.
In addition, every Microhead Array Chip installed into a Microhead Array Chip Hard Disk Drive's unit assembly is a fully integrated and self-contained CMOS device. The Microhead Array Chips are designed to be fully-integrated semiconductor devices with the microhead arrays, the addressing latching, the address decoding, the address buffering, the microhead selecting, the microhead switching, the signal amplifying, and the data I/O control circuitry all built into a single CMOS chip-package. Its because the Microhead Array Chips are fully-integrated that the Microhead Array Chips can execute “150” nanosecond “track-to-tack” switching operations (i.e., what is sometimes called in conventional hard disk drive design terminology average-seek-times). In addition, the Microhead Array Chip hard disk drive design will use an “ID-less” sector-tracking system for the sector tracking of sector-locations. Moreover, an ID-less sector-tracking system has several advantages over the conventional “ID After Wedge” or “ID Before Sector” methods of typical sector tracking. For example, the lack of an (ID) “Identifier” field, which is normally written to the data-surfaces of a hard disk drive's data-platters, will regain approximately 4% of the hard disk drive's data-surface real estate for end-user data-storage. Furthermore, because no “Sector-ID” has to be read or corrected during a disk operation, in case of an error, the overall throughput of a Microhead Array Chip based hard disk drive is also increased.
2. Description of Prior Art
Hard disk drives, particularly fixed hard disk drives, are valued because of several factors. Including, the hard disk drive's size (i.e., sometimes referred to as “form factor”), data storage capacity, random access times (i.e., so
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