Dynamic stability and spacing modulation of sub-25 nm fly height sliders

Designing a reliable sub-25 nm spacing head/disk interface for today's magnetic hard disk drives demands a greater dynamic stability and a smaller spacing modulation. An air bearing dynamic simulator with multiple features is developed to investigate the dynamic characteristics of three shaped-rail negative pressure sub-25 nm fly height sliders. Various simulations including air bearing stiffness, impulse response, surface roughness induced spacing modulation, bump response, and track seeking dynamics are performed. The results indicate that the roughness induced spacing modulation decreases with the increase of the air bearing stiffness and the decrease of the slider size. The suspension dynamics is integrated into the air bearing dynamics simulation for the track accessing motion by modal analysis. It is concluded that the fly height modulation during a track accessing event is attributed to many factors such as the effective skew angle, the seeking velocity, an the roll motion caused by the inertia of the moving head. The extent of the roll motion effect depends on the air bearing roll stiffness and the level of the inertia force of the moving head. Larger roll stiffness and smaller inertia force produce a smoother track accessing performance.