Study on head instability using Flying-QST tester for HDDs

Abstract

We developed a tester consisting of minor-loop and major-loop quasi-static test (QST) units in order to better understand head instabilities under conditions where the head slider was flying on the disk. The minor-loop QST unit, composed of a spin-stand and an electromagnetic coil, was used to understand the mechanism of head instabilities caused by thermal stress due to flying-height control using a thermal actuator and caused by mechanical stress due to contact between the head and disk under flying conditions. The major-loop QST unit was used to investigate head damage in detail. We designed and fabricated the tester and conducted experiments that focused on thermal and mechanical stress. The results confirmed that the new method was effective for studying head instabilities at the head disk interface of hard disk drives (HDDs).