Disk drive and method having cost-effective storage of the disk drive's internal program code

US7440214B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• Western Digital Technologies, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Travis E. Ell · Oklahoma City, US
• Hanan Kupferman · Diamond Bar, US
• Hoa V. Le · Irvine, US
• Jonathan Nguyen · Somerville, US
• Saied Tamaddon-Dallal · Lake Forest, US
• Virat Thantrakul · La Cañada Flintridge, US
• Teik Ee Yeo · Trabuco Canyon, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 30, 2003
• Grant date: Oct 21, 2008
• Expiry date: Nov 17, 2025

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G11B5/5965
• WIPO field: Audio-visual technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Disclosed is a disk drive having a disk, a masked read-only memory (ROM) device, a reprogrammable nonvolatile memory device, and a microprocessor for executing program code. The disk has a magnetic data storage surface with embedded servo wedges for defining data storage tracks including reserve tracks. The masked ROM device stores program code for implementing a spindle motor controller, program code for implementing a portion of a servo controller for track following along a data storage track, and program code for implementing a portion of a disk controller for controlling writing disk data to and reading disk data from the reserve tracks. The reprogrammable nonvolatile memory device stores data parameters relating to the disk drive's configuration. The reserve tracks store program code for implementing a cache control system for controlling caching of disk data in a cache memory.