A microactuator for head positioning system of hard disk drives

Author

Fujita, Hiroyuki ; Suzuki, Kosei ; Ataka, Manabu ; Nakamura, Shigeo

Author_Institution

Inst. of Ind. Sci., Tokyo Univ., Japan

Volume

35

Issue

2

fYear

1999

fDate

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1006

Lastpage

1010

Abstract

We proposed a new microactuator to realize high track density of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). The proposed actuator is an electrostatic actuator with multiple parallel plate electrodes and it drives only a Read/Write (R/W) head element. The actuator is fabricated by micromachining technologies. We show the desired design parameters of actuators which will achieve 40 kilo track per inch (TPI). The required driving gap aspect ratio for a silicon actuator and a nickel actuator are 20 and 50 respectively. The aspect ratio of 20 for silicon will be realized by an Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) etching process and the aspect ratio of 50 for nickel will be fabricated by a novel electroforming process with vertical sacrificial layer

Keywords

disc drives; electroforming; electrostatic actuators; hard discs; magnetic heads; micromachining; micropositioning; sputter etching; Ni; Si; aspect ratio; electroforming; electrostatic actuator; hard disk drive; head positioning system; inductively coupled plasma etching; microactuator; micromachining; multiple parallel plate electrodes; read/write element; sacrificial layer; track density; Electrodes; Electrostatic actuators; Frequency; Hard disks; Microactuators; Nickel; Open loop systems; Plasma applications; Servomechanisms; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.753824

Filename

753824