Drive level media thermal stability test

Media superparamagnetic effects are expected to limit the areal density for longitudinal recording. Extensive component level studies were performed on VSM/AGM/SQUID magnetic measurement equipment, and a HGA electrical spin-stand. It is important to quantify the media thermal stability at the drive level, and to understand the ultimate influence on drive BER performance. This work has focused on building a drive level test platform for measuring amplitude decay rates, exploring the decay rate dependency at drive temperatures, bit density effects, and media M_rt design. For the same type of magnetic alloy design, lower M_rt media results in higher decay rate. Decay accelerates at higher temperatures, and lower M_rt media has a higher temperature dependency. Drive level amplitude decay dependency on bit density is affected greatly by head characterization