Analysis and performance characteristics of the Seagate advanced air bearing slider

Abstract

The challenge of increasing disc drive capacity and performance while improving reliability requires a departure from typical straight rail air bearing sliders. This paper proposes a shaped air bearing that uses sub-ambient pressure. This design improves reliability by increasing air bearing stiffness, decreasing fly tolerances, increasing pitch angle, minimizing roll and improving take-off performance. The shaped rails and partially stepped edges control the fly height profile. This paper presents modeling of the slider's steady state and dynamic performance. Also presented are take-off velocity comparisons with catamaran, contact start/stop performance and the design's contamination sensitivity.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>