Determination of overwrite specification in thin-film head/disk systems

A self-consistent write analysis using the Preisach model is presented and used to calculate overwrite in thin-film head/disk systems. Two overwrite characterization procedures are discussed, and for each of the procedures the calculated values are compared with measurements. Through a correlation of overwrite, nonlinear peak shifts, and readback output voltage the authors determine the overwrite requirement. They show that whereas -30 dB of overwrite will ensure a satisfactory overall performance of the recording system, a much lower overwrite, say -20 dB, can work in certain situations. An analytical implementation of the self-consistent model is presented and verified with measurements. The analytical approach can be used to determine the overwrite at any applied field for any head/disk combination. The authors introduce a normalized effective field h_n, which depends on M_rδ, H_c, and other head/disk parameters. It is shown that a value of h _n greater than 0.8 is needed for overwrite values of better than 25 dB. The importance of various head/disk parameters in optimizing the overwrite is also discussed