Perpendicular recording heads for high areal density and high data rate applications

Significant progress has been made within the past year on perpendicular recording technology development and its application to Winchester type disc drives. Paced by rapid advancements in the perpendicular recording physics understanding, component design and fabrication technology has made great strides toward closing the performance gap with the more mature longitudinal recording technology. In particular, closer examination of the combined heads and media parameters and their interdependence and interactions has been instrumental in enabling the recent perpendicular recording areal density and data rate achievements. Concurrently, integration of these advanced components in disc drives has provided valuable information on system level performance issues and has accelerated component design maturity.