Multichannel Write and GMR Heads for Over 1 TB Tape System

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 42; no. 10; pp. 2324 - 2326
• Main Authors: Tamakawa, Y., Shibata, T., Terui, S., Watanabe, T., Soda, Y.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.10.2006; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Assembly; Azimuth; Business; Cassettes; Channels; Chemicals; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Density; Dry etching; Exact sciences and technology; Fabrication; Feasibility; Giant magnetoresistance; GMR head; Guards; helical-scan tape system; Magnetic heads; Magnetism; Materials science; ME-tape; Multichannel; nontracking; Other topics in materials science; Physics; Read heads; Recording; spin-valve head; Video equipment; GMR head; Proceedings; helical-scan tape system; multichannel; Valves; ME-tape; spin-valve head; Magnetic heads; nontracking; Magnetic properties
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/TMAG.2006.879643

This paper reports on the structure and performance of multichannel write and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads for a helical-scan tape system. The four-channel write head was fabricated with four layers stacked and shifted by a track pitch. The eight-channel read head was also stacked four layers, each of which has two spin-valve elements. The write head and read head were assembled into a commercial drive. Four channels are written in one revolution without a guard band and each of the eight channels is read, in half of the track pitch. The feasibility of a recording density over 4.3 Gb/in 2 was established, which would make possible a tape system of over 1 TB using an 8 mm cassette