Disk drive comprising a per-drive and per-head fly height filter

Disk drives comprise a disk and a head connected to a distal end of an actuator arm which is rotated about a pivot by a voice coil motor (VCM) to position the head radially over the disk. The disk comprises a plurality of radially spaced, concentric tracks for recording user data sectors and embedded servo sectors. The embedded servo sectors comprise head positioning information (e.g., a track address) which is read by the head and processed by a servo controller to control the actuator arm as it seeks from track to track.

An air bearing forms between the head and the disk due to the disk rotating at high speeds. Since the quality of the write/read signal depends on the fly height of the head, conventional heads (e.g., magnetoresistive heads) may comprise a fly height actuator (FHA) for controlling the fly height. Any suitable FHA may be employed, such as a heater which controls fly height through thermal expansion, or a piezoelectric (PZT) actuator. It is desirable to determine the appropriate setting for the FHA control signal (e.g., appropriate current applied to a heater) that achieves the target fly height for the head.

FIGS. 1A and 1B show a disk drive according to an embodiment comprising a plurality of heads actuated over respective disk surfaces.

FIG. 1C shows a head according to an embodiment comprising a write element, a read element, and a fly height actuator (FHA).

FIG. 1D is a flow diagram according to an embodiment wherein the FHA for a first head is controlled based on an average value (e.g., average fly height delta) measured for all of the heads and the fly height measurement for the first head.

FIG. 2A shows an embodiment wherein an average fly height delta and a specific fly height delta measured for each head is integrated in order to adjust an FHA control signal for each head.

FIG. 2B shows an embodiment wherein the specific fly height delta may be disabled so that the FHA control signal for the specific head is adjusted based only on the average fly height delta of the other heads.

FIG. 3A is a flow diagram according to an embodiment wherein a sampling rate of the fly height measurements is adjusted based on the fly height measurements.

FIG. 3B shows an embodiment wherein the sampling rate of the fly height measurements is increased as the amplitude, or derivative of the amplitude, or other metric of a fly height delta exceeds a threshold.

FIGS. 1A and 1B show a disk drive according to an embodiment comprising a plurality of disk surfaces 2 0 - 2 N , and a head 4 0 - 4 N actuated over each disk surface 2 0 - 2 N , where each head 4 i ( FIG. 1C ) comprises a fly height actuator (FHA) 6 operable to control a fly height of the head 4 i over the corresponding disk surface 2 i . The disk drive further comprises control circuitry 8 operable to execute the flow diagram of FIG. 1D , wherein a fly height is measured for each head to generate a plurality of fly height measurements (block 10 ). An average value is generated in response to the plurality of fly height measurements (block 12 ), and a first control value is generated for a first head based on the average value and the fly height measurement for the first head (block 14 ). The first FHA of the first head is controlled in response to the first control value (block 16 ).

In the embodiment of FIG. 1A , each disk surface 2 i comprises a plurality of servo tracks 18 defined by servo sectors 20 0 - 20 N , wherein data tracks are defined relative to the servo tracks at the same or different radial density. The control circuitry 8 processes a read signal 22 emanating from the head 4 i to demodulate the servo sectors 20 0 - 20 N and generate a position error signal (PES) representing an error between the actual position of the head and a target position relative to a target track. The control circuitry 8 filters the PES using a suitable compensation filter to generate a control signal 24 applied to a voice coil motor (VCM) 26 which rotates an actuator arm 28 about a pivot in order to actuate the head 4 i radially over the disk surface 2 i in a direction that reduces the PES. The servo sectors 20 0 - 20 N may comprise any suitable head position information, such as a track address for coarse positioning and servo bursts for fine positioning. The servo bursts may comprise any suitable pattern, such as an amplitude based servo pattern or a phase based servo pattern.

In one embodiment, the control circuitry 8 reserves at least one data track on each disk surface 2 i for measuring the fly height of each head 4 i . In one embodiment, the control circuitry 8 writes a test pattern (e.g., a periodic pattern) to each reserved data track. The control circuitry 8 may then periodically seek the heads to the reserved data tracks in order to read the test pattern and generate a fly height measurement. An FHA control signal 30 is adjusted based on the updated fly height measurement for each head in order to maintain the heads at a target fly height. In another embodiment, a fly height measurement may be generated while reading a periodic pattern in the servo sectors 20 0 - 20 N , such as a preamble, postamble, or servo burst. In yet other embodiments, the fly height of each head 4 i may be measured by measuring a capacitance between the head and respective disk surface, or measuring a current flowing between the head and respective disk surface.

In the embodiment of FIG. 1D , each head 4 i comprises a write element 32 (e.g., an inductive coil) and a read element 34 (e.g., a magnetoresistive element). In one embodiment, each head 4 i may also comprise a separate touchdown sensor, such as a magnetoresistive element (not shown), that may be used to determine the FHA control signal 30 that causes each head to contact the respective disk surface. In other embodiments, the touchdown of each head may be detected by evaluating a perturbation in the read signal, a perturbation in the PES of the servo control system, a perturbation in the spindle motor controller that rotates the disk, a perturbation in a clock locked to the disk rotation frequency, or any other suitable metric. In one embodiment, after determining the FHA control signal 30 that causes a head touchdown, an operating level for the FHA control signal is generated by backing off the FHA control signal by a predetermined offset. After backing off the FHA control signal, a fly height measurement is generated for each head which becomes the target fly height for each head.

While the disk drive is deployed in the field, the fly height may be measured periodically for each head using any suitable technique. In one embodiment, the fly height is measured by reading a periodic pattern from the disk surface and evaluating the fundamental and harmonics of the resulting read signal (a harmonic ratio technique based on the Wallace spacing equation). In this embodiment, after calibrating the FHA back off from touchdown, the fly height measurement based on the harmonic ratio technique becomes the target fly height. In one embodiment, at a periodic interval (which may vary as described below), the control circuitry 8 again reads the periodic pattern to measure a current fly height based on the harmonic ratio measurement, and compares the current fly height measurement to the target fly height measurement to generate a fly height delta for each head. In other embodiments, the target fly height measurement and current fly height measurement may be generated using a suitable fly height transducer that may measure, for example, the capacitance between the head and disk surface or the current flowing between the head and disk surface. The fly height delta measured for each head may be used to adjust the FHA control signal applied to the FHA of each head, thereby driving the fly height of each head toward the respective target fly height.

In one embodiment, the fly height delta measured for any particular head may be a relatively noisy signal that may not result in a sufficiently accurate FHA control signal, which may degrade performance of write/read operations particularly during transient conditions (e.g., changes in altitude). Filtering the fly height delta measurement for each head using a low pass filter may help attenuate the noise, but it may also induce an unacceptable delay in the transient response. For example, if there is a change in altitude, the response of the low pass filter may be to slow to adequately track the transient which may again degrade performance of write/read operations during and after the transient.

In one embodiment, the noisy fly height delta measurements for each head is compensated by employing a first filter that averages the fly height delta measurements for all of the heads, and a second filter that filters the fly height delta for each specific head. An example of this embodiment is shown in FIG. 2A , wherein during a calibration procedure a fly height delta is measured at block 36 for each head using, for example, one of the techniques described above. A multiplexer 38 controlled by a cycle signal 40 applies each fly height delta 42 to a delay line comprising a series of storage registers D 1 -D N 43 corresponding to the N heads. The N fly height delta measurements are summed 44 , and the sum divided by N at divider 46 to generate an average fly height delta 48 . After measuring N fly height deltas in order to generate an average value 48 , the current fly height delta 42 output by the multiplexer 38 is input into adder 50 which subtracts the average value 48 to generate a deviation value 52 representing the deviation of the fly height delta 42 from the average 48 . The average value 48 is amplified by a first gain 54 and the deviation value 52 is amplified by a second gain 56 . In one embodiment, the first gain 54 is significantly higher than the second gain 56 so that the average value 48 has a faster transient response to changes in environmental conditions (e.g., changes in altitude). Averaging the fly height deltas from all the heads helps attenuate the noise in each individual fly height delta, which enables the averaging filter to have a higher gain 54 and therefore a better transient response. The deviation value 52 generated for each head allows the system to adjust the FHA control signal 30 toward a value that compensates for variance between the heads, such as a variable gain of each FHA 6 . In one embodiment, a lower gain 56 is configured for this filter which helps attenuate the undesirable affect of the noise in each individual fly height delta measurement.

In the embodiment of FIG. 2A , the amplified average value 58 and the amplified deviation value 60 are added at adder 62 together with a previous value stored in a register 64 . The output 66 of the adder 62 replaces the value stored in the register 64 , thereby implementing an integrator. A first storage array 68 stores the value in register 64 for each head. When the multiplexer 38 outputs the fly height delta for a head, that head's value is retrieved from the first storage array 68 and loaded into the register 64 . The value in register 64 is then updated using one or more fly height delta measurements for the current head, and the updated value stored in register 64 is saved to the first storage array 68 . A second storage array 70 stores the FHA control signal value for each head that corresponds to the target fly height calibrated during the touchdown procedure described above. The second storage array 70 also stores an adjustment value for the FHA control signal that corresponds to each integrated fly height delta stored in the first storage array 68 . Each time the integrated fly height delta for a head is updated, the corresponding value in the first storage array 68 is added to the adjustment value in the second storage array 70 . As adjustments are made to the fly height of a head, the integrated fly height delta stored in the first storage array 68 will integrate toward zero, and the corresponding adjustment value stored in the second storage array 70 will converge to a steady state value.

In one embodiment, when measuring the fly height delta for each head at block 36 of FIG. 2A , a number of measurements may be taken for each head and averaged. The averaged measurement may be output by the multiplexer 38 and stored in the storage registers D 1 -D N 43 . In addition, when updating the integrated fly height delta for a head, a number of fly height delta measurements (or a number of averaged measurements) may be used to generate a number of corresponding deviation values 52 for updating the integrated value stored in register 64 .

In one embodiment, the control circuitry 8 may initialize the averaging filter shown in FIG. 2A during a calibration procedure, for example, by generating a fly height delta measurement for each head. The control circuitry 8 may also initialize the integrated deltas stored in the first storage array 68 during this calibration procedure. During a normal access operation of a particular disk surface, a fly height delta may be measured for the corresponding head using, for example, a periodic signal in a servo sector or a fly height transducer integrated with the head. The measured fly height delta may then be used to update the averaging filter by loading the fly height delta into the corresponding storage register D 1 -D N 43 . The measured fly height delta may also be used to generate a deviation value 52 in order to update the corresponding integrated delta stored in the first storage array 68 . In one embodiment, the control circuitry 8 may periodically force an update of the integrated fly height delta for any head that has not been updated during normal access operations.

FIG. 2B shows an embodiment wherein when an outlier of the deviation value 52 is detected, the integrated fly height delta stored in register 64 is updated using only the average value 58 (independent of the deviation value 52 ). In one embodiment, an outlier of the deviation value 52 is detected when it exceeds a threshold (positive or negative) at comparator 72 . When an outlier is detected, the corresponding fly height delta 42 and deviation value 52 are set to zero so that the measurement is not used to generate the average value 48 (N at divider 46 is decremented by one), or used to update the integrated value stored in register 64 . That is, the average value 48 generated based on the fly height delta of the other heads is used to update the integrated delta value for the outlier head. In one embodiment, if one of the heads consistently generates an outlier deviation value 52 , the fly height measurement for that head may be disabled permanently. The integrated delta for that head may continue to be updated based on the average value 48 generated for the other heads; that is, the fly height for the head may still be controlled reasonably well even though the fly height measurement for the head may have been disabled.

The particular configuration of elements shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B is illustrative and may be implemented in any suitable manner. For example, the averaging filter need not comprise a plurality of storage registers connected in series, but may be accessed directly using a suitable demultiplexer. In other embodiments, the filtering aspects, including the averaging and integrating, may be implemented by a microprocessor executing firmware. In the embodiment of FIG. 2B , a switch connecting to ground represents the embodiment where an outlier deviation measurement 52 is excluded from the first and second filters. However, connecting a switch to ground merely represents the aspect of zeroing the fly height delta measurement 42 as well as zeroing the deviation value 52 . Other embodiments may employ suitable digital circuitry for multiplexing a zero value into the first and second filters, or suitable firmware for zeroing these values. In the embodiments of FIGS. 2A and 2B , a fly height delta is measured for each head in the disk drive, but other embodiments may measure a fly height delta for only a subset of the heads. For example, in one embodiment when one of the heads provides an unreliable fly height measurement as described above, the fly height measurement for that head may be disabled.

In one embodiment, the control circuitry 8 updates the fly height delta measurements at a sampling rate that ensures the FHA control signal applied to each head will maintain the fly height at the target fly height within an acceptable margin. FIG. 3A is a flow diagram according to an embodiment wherein as the control circuitry 8 takes the periodic fly height measurements (block 74 ), the sampling rate for the fly height measurements is adjusted based on the fly height measurements (block 76 ). An example of this embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 3B , wherein the sampling rate may be increased (so as to take more measurements) as the amplitude of the fly height delta increases, or a derivative of the fly height delta increases, either of which may indicate that the fly height of the heads is changing faster due, for example, to the disk drive changing altitude. In one embodiment, the amplitude and/or derivative of the filtered fly height delta (e.g., the average value 48 or 58 in FIG. 2A ) may be evaluated to adjust the sampling rate. The sampling rate of the fly height measurement may be increased at any suitable resolution, including fewer or more step increments than that shown in the example of FIG. 3B .

Any suitable control circuitry may be employed to implement the flow diagrams in the above embodiments, such as any suitable integrated circuit or circuits. For example, the control circuitry may be implemented within a read channel integrated circuit, or in a component separate from the read channel, such as a disk controller, or certain operations described above may be performed by a read channel and others by a disk controller. In one embodiment, the read channel and disk controller are implemented as separate integrated circuits, and in an alternative embodiment they are fabricated into a single integrated circuit or system on a chip (SOC). In addition, the control circuitry may include a suitable preamp circuit implemented as a separate integrated circuit, integrated into the read channel or disk controller circuit, or integrated into a SOC.

In one embodiment, the control circuitry comprises a microprocessor executing instructions, the instructions being operable to cause the microprocessor to perform the flow diagrams described herein. The instructions may be stored in any computer-readable medium. In one embodiment, they may be stored on a non-volatile semiconductor memory external to the microprocessor, or integrated with the microprocessor in a SOC. In another embodiment, the instructions are stored on the disk and read into a volatile semiconductor memory when the disk drive is powered on. In yet another embodiment, the control circuitry comprises suitable logic circuitry, such as state machine circuitry.

The various features and processes described above may be used independently of one another, or may be combined in various ways. All possible combinations and subcombinations are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure. In addition, certain method, event or process blocks may be omitted in some implementations. The methods and processes described herein are also not limited to any particular sequence, and the blocks or states relating thereto can be performed in other sequences that are appropriate. For example, described tasks or events may be performed in an order other than that specifically disclosed, or multiple may be combined in a single block or state. The example tasks or events may be performed in serial, in parallel, or in some other manner. Tasks or events may be added to or removed from the disclosed example embodiments. The example systems and components described herein may be configured differently than described. For example, elements may be added to, removed from, or rearranged compared to the disclosed example embodiments.

While certain example embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions disclosed herein. Thus, nothing in the foregoing description is intended to imply that any particular feature, characteristic, step, module, or block is necessary or indispensable. Indeed, the novel methods and systems described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the methods and systems described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions disclosed herein.

As will be apparent, many variations on the systems and methods described above are possible. For example, while the above disclosure may have described processes as performed for “each” sector, zone, head, disk, disk surface or other component, in some cases, the processes may be performed for only one or some of the components and not necessarily for all of the components.