Head challenges for perpendicular recording at high areal density

To explore recording head challenges for perpendicular recording at 200 Gb/in² and beyond, the design, fabrication and performance of narrow track dual-element heads were studied using an ABS trailing shield writer design and a conventional CIP-GMR reader design. Parametric recording tests of these heads on low noise CoCrPt/SUL media show that, with the trailing shield design, good writability and low disk transition jitter around 2.5 nm were achieved at narrow write trackwidths down to 120 nm. In addition, peak-to-peak signal amplitudes around 1 mV and T₅₀ widths around 28 nm were also achieved at read trackwidths around 60 nm. The areal density potential of these heads was studied using a PRML channel at ∼50 MB/s data rate. Results show linear densities around 1000 Kbpi at ontrack byte error rates of 10^-4, and track densities around 200-240 ktpi using a criterion of 15% offtrack to trackpitch ratio. In all, areal densities of 210-230 Gb/in² were achieved with these head and disk components.