HDD with VCM back EMF and voltage control circuitry

• US 8,497,641 B2
• Filed: 03/10/2010
• Issued: 07/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Yamashita, Masaki, Ota, Chisako, Wasa, Nobuhiko
• Primary Examiner(s): GLASS, ERICK DAVID
• Application Number:
  US12/720,950
• Publication Number:
  US 20100302670A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,238 Days
• Field of Search: 318/66, 318/400, 318/29, 318/400.29, 360/75
• US Class Current: 318/66
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 19/20 Driving; Starting; Stopping; Control thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 21/12 Raising and lowering; Back-spacing or forward-spacing along track; Returning to starting position otherwise than during transducing operation
• CPC Class Codes: H02P 6/34 Modelling or simulation for control purposes

Abstract

To provide a disk drive capable of inhibiting the occurrence of acoustic noise caused by a voltage pulse when the head is retracted using a speed control method using voltage obtained by rectifying a back electromotive force after the power source has been cut off from the rotation of a spindle motor. Retraction control circuit is used to control the on and off modes of transistors in accordance with the speed of VCM. The voltage across VCM becomes a voltage that can be regulated with VCM voltage control circuit. At this time, voltage is supplied to the terminals based on the voltage of ISO5V that is the rectified voltage of the back electromotive force of the spindle motor and the pulsating voltage is synchronized and produced at both terminals. As a result, the potential difference across VCM is such that the pulsating voltage is negated and acoustic noise is inhibited.

Claims

1. A hard disk drive comprising:

A. a first voltage supply lead and a voltage return lead;

B. a voice coil motor having opposed terminals;

C. an FET circuit having inputs connected to the first voltage supply lead, the voltage return lead, and the opposed terminals of the voice coil motor, and having FET gate inputs;

D. a back EMF A/D converter having analog input leads connected to the opposed terminals of the voice coil motor and having a digital output;

E. a retraction control circuit having a digital input connected to the digital output, having outputs selectively coupled to the FET gate inputs, and having a voltage control output; and

F. a voltage control circuit having an input coupled to the voltage control output, having inputs selectively coupled to the voice coil motor terminals, and having outputs selectively connected to at least some of the FET gate inputs.

2. The hard disk drive of claim 1 in which the voice coil motor has three terminals:

VCMA, RSENP, and VCMB, and including a coil connected between terminals VCMA and RSENP, and a resistor connected between terminals RSENP and VCMB.

3. The hard disk drive of claim 1 in which the FET circuit has two pairs of FET drive transistors connected between the first voltage supply lead and the voltage return lead, and each pair of drive transistors is coupled to one of the opposed voice coil motor terminals.

4. The hard disk drive of claim 1 in which the voice coil motor has three terminals:

VCMA, RSENP, and VCMB, and including a coil connected between the VCMA and RSENP terminals, and a resistor connected between the RSENP and VCMB terminals, the back EMF A/D converter has two input leads connected to the VCMA and RSENP terminals.