Patents Examined by Craig A. Renner
  • Patent number: 11688420
    Abstract: The present disclosure generally relates to a tape head and a tape drive including a tape head. The tape head comprises servo heads configured to read servo data from a tape, a plurality of write heads configured to: write user data to a plurality of data tracks of the tape and write embedded servo data into one or more data fields of the tape, the embedded servo data comprising servo positioning information, and a plurality of read heads configured to read the user data and the embedded servo data from the tape. The embedded servo data may be embedded servo fields or embedded servo tracks. The embedded servo data allows the tape head to be accurately controlled and positioned above the tape, and for new data to be accurately appended to the tape.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: James N. Malina, Masahito Kobayashi, Derrick E. Burton, Robert G. Biskeborn, Mark L. Watson
  • Patent number: 11688429
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a housing including a hole, a magnetic disk, a control board closing the hole, and an electronic component. The electronic component is mounted on the control board, and assists a control operation for recording and reproducing information on and from the magnetic disk.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2023
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA ELECTRONIC DEVICES & STORAGE CORPORATION
    Inventors: Taichi Okano, Jia Liu, Nobuhiro Yamamoto, Kota Tokuda
  • Patent number: 11682425
    Abstract: A ring-shaped glass spacer is configured to be arranged in contact with a magnetic disk in a hard disk drive apparatus. A surface resistivity of a surface of a glass material of the glass spacer at 22 (° C.) is lower than a surface resistivity of an inner portion of the glass material at 22 (° C.).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2023
    Assignee: HOYA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Shinji Eda, Kinobu Osakabe, Yoshitake Tanno, Mikio Ikenishi
  • Patent number: 11682421
    Abstract: The present disclosure generally relates to a tape drive including a tape head. The tape head comprises at least one same gap verify (SGV) module comprising a plurality of write transducer and read transducer pairs disposed on a substrate. Each pair comprises a null shield disposed between the write transducer and the read transducer. One or more of a position between the write transducer and the read transducer of each pair, a width, a height, a thickness, and a permeability of the null shield is adjusted to create a null region, and the read transducer is disposed in the null region. The SGV module is configured to write data to a tape using the write transducer of each pair and read verify the data written on the tape using the read transducer of each pair such that the write transducer and read transducer of each pair are concurrently operable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: David J. Seagle, Alexander Goncharov, Robert G. Biskeborn
  • Patent number: 11676635
    Abstract: A tape library having a robot zone and a robot on the robot zone, movable in the robot zone of the tape rack in at least a first direction and a second direction. A tape drive, which has an opening to receive cartridges, is positioned so that the robot nears the tape drive when the robot moves in a second direction. A width of the tape drive is wider than a width of the robot zone. This tape drive design is called the “Sideways Format Path for 19? Rack Libraries.” It is achieved by using unique dimensions for a new tape drive that uses blind spaces existing in tape libraries unreachable by the robot to provide a bigger space to design longer tape paths, resulting in higher cartridge density with longer tape path without requiring bigger overall library dimensions for a library of tape cartridges.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2023
    Assignee: QUANTUM CORPORATION
    Inventors: Turguy Goker, Clark Janssen, Joe K. Jurneke, Lawrence G. Neumann, Scott M Rockwell
  • Patent number: 11676628
    Abstract: A hard disk drive head slider housing a read-write transducer includes a plurality of electrical connection pads, where each electrical pad includes an interconnection portion configured for electrically connecting to an interconnected component, such as a lead suspension, a probe contact portion configured for electrical testing the head slider, and at least one slit positioned between the interconnection portion and the probe contact portion, thereby physically distinguishing and separating the two portions of a multiple-portion pad to inhibit undesirable solder flow to the wider probe contact portion on the slider side of each pad. A more controlled solder joint is provided, while the probe contact portion can remain relatively wide for probe contact and the interconnection portion can remain relatively narrow to reduce solder bridges among the pads.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Kohichiroh Naka, Takeshi Hyugano, Kenichi Murata, Yuhsuke Matsumoto
  • Patent number: 11670336
    Abstract: A hard disk drive includes a base deck that is coupled to a cover, a motor assembly that is coupled to the base deck, and magnetic recording media that is coupled to the motor assembly. The motor assembly includes a magnetic bearing with a horizontal magnetic bearing component and a vertical magnetic bearing component.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2023
    Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC
    Inventors: Aravind Pitty, Xiong Liu
  • Patent number: 11664049
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a magnetic disk, a load beam, a flexure, a head unit, and a first restrictor. The load beam has a first face facing the magnetic disk. The flexure is attached to the first face. The head unit includes: a magnetic head attached to the flexure, configured to read and write information from and to the magnetic disk; and a heat-assister attached to the magnetic head, configured to heat the magnetic disk. The first restrictor is included in the head unit, configured to come in contact with at least one of the load beam and the flexure along with movement of the magnetic head away from the first face by a first distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2023
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA ELECTRONIC DEVICES & STORAGE CORPORATION
    Inventor: Masaya Kudo
  • Patent number: 11657841
    Abstract: A hard disk drive flexible printed circuit (FPC) includes a plurality of fingers extending from a main portion, with each finger having a thermally-conductive stiffener, at least one wiring layer over the stiffener, and a cover film over the at least one wiring layer, where the centroid of the stiffener is offset from the centerline of the cover film. Thus, utilizing the heat-sink characteristics of the stiffener, temperature differences among the upper and lower electrical pads of the FPC resulting from a heat-based interconnection procedure can be reduced and the temperatures across the FPC finger made more uniform, damage to the FPC prevented, and soldering yields improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Teruhiro Nakamiya, Kazuhiro Nagaoka, Satoshi Nakamura, Nobuyuki Okunaga
  • Patent number: 11657838
    Abstract: In order to reduce the possibility of occurrence of retraction of a cleaning member during cleaning of a magnetic head and the possibility of the cleaning member not being able to return to a retraction position due to stopping part way, the cleaning enabling device is provided with: a holding member having a first surface capable of holding the cleaning member for cleaning the magnetic head, and a second surface capable of lifting a magnetic tape from the magnetic head; a transmission part which transmits a first driving force for driving a first driving member; and a first force application part which applies, to the holding member, a first force in a direction that causes the cleaning member to remain in the retraction position when the cleaning member is in the retraction position and releases the first force when the cleaning member is drawn away from the retraction position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2023
    Assignee: NEC Platforms, Ltd.
    Inventor: Hidehiro Urahama
  • Patent number: 11651782
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, among a plurality of magnetic heads, the larger the magnetic pole width of the magnetic pole of the magnetic head in the width direction of a recording track formed in a recording layer or the larger an area width of the magnetic head capable of reading the magnetic characteristics of an area of the recording layer on which magnetic recording has been carried out by means of the magnetic head, the farther is the magnetic head arranged outwardly from the vicinity of the center in the parallel arrangement direction of the magnetic disks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA ELECTRONIC DEVICES & STORAGE CORPORATION
    Inventor: Hiroshi Isokawa
  • Patent number: 11651786
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to pretreating a magnetic recording head for magnetic media drive. For a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) head, a light source provides the necessary heat for the drive to operation. A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is mounted to a top surface of a slider. A plurality of laser beams are emitted from the bottom surface of the VCSEL and directed to a corresponding number of waveguide structures within the HAMR head. The waveguide structures feed into a multimode interference (MMI) device that then directs the laser into a single waveguide for focusing on a near field transducer (NFT). The VCSEL lasers are phase coherent and have no mode hopping.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Barry C. Stipe, Takuya Matsumoto, Sergei Sochava
  • Patent number: 11651787
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to pretreating a magnetic recording head for magnetic media drive. For a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) head, a light source provides the necessary heat for the drive to operation. A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) is mounted to a top surface of a slider. A plurality of laser beams are emitted from the bottom surface of the VCSEL and directed to a corresponding number of waveguide structures within the HAMR head. The waveguide structures feed into a multimode interference (MMI) device that then directs the laser into a single waveguide for focusing on a near field transducer (NFT). The VCSEL lasers are phase coherent and have no mode hopping.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Barry C. Stipe, Takuya Matsumoto, Sergei Sochava
  • Patent number: 11651781
    Abstract: A magnetic recording medium according to the present technology is a tape-shaped magnetic recording medium including: a base material; and a magnetic layer, the tape-shaped magnetic recording medium being long in a longitudinal direction and short in a width direction, in which the magnetic layer includes a data band long in the longitudinal direction and a servo band long in the longitudinal direction, a data signal being written to the data band, a servo signal being written to the servo band, the degree of perpendicular orientation of the magnetic layer being 65% or more, a full width at half maximum of an isolated waveform in a reproduced waveform of the data signal is 185 nm or less, a thickness of the magnetic layer is 90 nm or less, and a thickness of the base material is 4.2 ?m or less.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignee: Sony Group Corporation
    Inventor: Minoru Yamaga
  • Patent number: 11646053
    Abstract: The present disclosure generally relates to a tape drive including a tape head. The tape head comprises at least one same gap verify (SGV) module comprising a plurality of write transducer and read transducer pairs disposed on a substrate. In each pair, the write transducer comprises a write pole having a height, and the read transducer comprises a first shield disposed adjacent to the write pole. The write pole and the first shield of each pair are spaced apart a distance greater than or equal to about 20% of the height of the write pole. The SGV module is configured to write data to a tape using the write transducer of each pair and read verify the data written on the tape using the read transducer of each pair such that the write transducer and read transducer of each pair are concurrently operable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: David J. Seagle, Alexander Goncharov, Robert G. Biskeborn
  • Patent number: 11646054
    Abstract: The present disclosure generally relates to a tape drive including a tape head. The tape head comprises at least one same gap verify (SGV) module comprising a plurality of write transducer and read transducer pairs disposed on a substrate. Each pair comprises a null shield disposed between the write transducer and the read transducer. The null shield is used to create a null region, or a region where write flux goes to zero, and comprises laminated antiferromagnetic coupling materials to protect writer flux from going to the read transducer. The read transducer is disposed in the null region. The SGV module is configured to write data to a tape using the write transducer of each pair and read verify the data written on the tape using the read transducer of each pair such that the write transducer and read transducer of each pair are concurrently operable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Quang Le, Xiaoyong Liu, Kuok San Ho, Hisashi Takano
  • Patent number: 11626130
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a magnetic head includes a first magnetic pole, a second magnetic pole, and a stacked body provided between the first and second magnetic poles. The stacked body includes a first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer provided between the first magnetic pole and the first magnetic layer, a third magnetic layer provided between the first magnetic pole and the second magnetic layer, a first nonmagnetic layer provided between the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic pole, a second nonmagnetic layer provided between the second and first magnetic layers, and a third nonmagnetic layer provided between the third and second magnetic layers. The third magnetic layer includes first and second elements. The first and second magnetic layers do not include the second element. Or concentrations of the second element in the first and second magnetic layers are less than in the third magnetic layer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2023
    Assignees: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA ELECTRONIC DEVICES & STORAGE CORPORATION
    Inventors: Naoyuki Narita, Masayuki Takagishi, Hitoshi Iwasaki, Tomoyuki Maeda
  • Patent number: 11615804
    Abstract: A data storage device is disclosed comprising a storage medium and a head configured to access the storage medium, wherein the head comprises a first write assist element (WA1) comprising a first terminal and a second terminal and a second write assist element (WA2) comprising a first terminal and a second terminal. The second terminal of the WA1 and the second terminal of the WA2 are coupled together to form a common node. A first bias signal is applied to the first terminal of the WA1, a second bias signal is applied to the first terminal of the WA2, and a common mode voltage is applied to the common node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Joey M. Poss, John T. Contreras, Ian Robson McFadyen, Yaw Shing Tang
  • Patent number: 11605397
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure provide various magnetic recording slider structures and fabrication methods that can reduce head overcoat (HOC) thickness without significantly reducing the lifetime and reliability of a slider by using a protective cap placed on preselected locations on the outermost surface or HOC of the slider. A slider includes a writer comprising an energy-assisted recording element. The writer is configured to store information on a magnetic medium using the energy-assisted recording element. The slider includes a head overcoat (HOC) layer providing an outermost media facing surface. The slider further includes a protective cap positioned on the HOC layer to at least partially cover the energy-assisted recording element, the protective cap including a preselected shape configured to protect the energy-assisted recording element.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: John Pierre Herber, Mark David Alnas Alias, Aileen Ticzon Jara, Reimar Azupardo
  • Patent number: 11594261
    Abstract: A modular data storage tape library includes a modular frame having a form factor similar to other types of computing racks. The modular data storage tape library includes a hermetically sealed enclosure within the modular frame and a cooling portion within the modular frame. Data storage tapes, data storage drives and robotics for moving the data storage tapes are included within the hermetically sealed enclosure. A heat exchanger transfers heat from the hermetically sealed enclosure to the cooling portion outside of the sealed enclosure through a boundary of the hermetically sealed enclosure without introducing air from the data center into the hermetically sealed enclosure. Because air is neither introduced nor removed from the hermetically sealed enclosure, humidity fluctuations are minimal, if existent, and contaminants are prevented from entering the hermetically sealed enclosure, thus increasing the life spans of the data storage tapes included in the hermetically sealed enclosure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2023
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Rick Chun Kit Cheung, Luke Thomas Gregory, Priti Choudhary, Brandyn Giroux