A novel contact slider/gimbal to raise recording density in flexible disk drives

摘要

We developed the soft and full-contact head/ gimbal assembly (HGA) for card-size flexible disk drive. We used a 150 μg slider and a flexible beam of BeCu alloy to realize soft contact. We designed our HGA using FEM simulation and optimized the load force, the load pressure, and the stress on the beam. We report the mechanical characteristics, read-write signals, and the vibration of the HGA. A new type loading/unloading mechanism was developed for the removable flexible medium, and confirmed the reliability of the loading/unloading mechanism by the deformation of the HGA and the loaded medium.