A Slider With an Integrated Microactuator (SLIM) for Second Stage Actuation in Hard Disc Drives

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 44; no. 11; pp. 3726 - 3729
• Main Authors: Gatzen, H.H., Freitas, P., Obermeier, E., Robertson, J.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.11.2008; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Actuators; Costs; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electromagnetic microactuator; Exact sciences and technology; Fabrication; flying height adjustment; Hard disks; Magnetic heads; Magnetism; Materials science; Microactuators; Microsensors; Other topics in materials science; Physics; Production; second stage actuation; Thin film devices; Writing; Electromagnetic microactuator; second stage actuation; flying height adjustment; Magnetic properties
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/TMAG.2008.2002592

A slider with an integrated microactuator (SLIM) was devised, which is capable of actuating a read-write element of a hard disc drive (HDD) in both vertical direction (adjusting the flying height) and in lateral direction (allowing second stage actuation). The read-write element is located on a chiplet attached to a mounting platform. A pair of integrated electromagnetic microactuators appropriately activates this mounting platform and thus the read-write element. This design promises a cost competitive solution for HDD recording head microactuation. While the SLIM design as well as the thin-film fabrication of the SLIM component parts were completed, a 40 : 1 model allowed for initial system level experimental measurements which indicate a good agreement between the performance of the model and the actual SLIM device.