KR100238675B1 - Setting method for zone layout according to drive - Google Patents

Abstract

end. TECHNICAL FIELD This invention relates to a method for setting a zone layout of a hard disk drive.

I. The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a zone layout setting method that can set the optimal capacity according to the drive performance by optimizing the zone layout according to the performance of each drive.

All. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A hard disk drive comprising a zone table in which a disk surface is divided into a plurality of zones and each of the divided zones has a different data rate, wherein among the zones constituting the zone table Selecting a random zone and sequentially varying all data rates constituting the zone table to the selected zone while detecting a data rate indicating a maximum error rate within a preset specification range; The data rate corresponding to each of the zones and corresponding to each of the remaining zones of the zone table is shifted in the same direction and size as the detected data rate is shifted to form a new zone table.

la. Important use of the invention: Can be used to set the zone layout of the hard disk drive.

Description

How to set zone layout according to drive performance

The present invention relates to zone layout setting of a hard disk drive, and more particularly, to a method for setting an optimum zone layout in consideration of a channel characteristic of a drive.

A hard disk drive is a kind of auxiliary memory that receives data from a host (ordinarily a personal computer), stores the data on a disk, and replays the data to the host. In a hard disk drive, a read / write channel receives data from the host, writes the data to the disk through the head, and transmits the data reproduced through the head back to the host. That is, when data is read, information (user data and servo information) recorded on the disk surface is read by the head, and the read information is read and interpreted by the read / write channel to the host through the disk data controller. Is sent. On the contrary, when data is written, data transmitted from the host is written to the disk surface through the disk data controller, the read / write channel and the head. The preferred design for lead / light channels is to write and read the most data in a limited area. However, this design has many limitations. In particular, capacity design may be limited depending on the performance of heads and disks, component tolerances and assembly conditions.

In general, drive manufacturers evaluate the performance of heads / disks with an appropriate number of drive samples, and then form a table called zone layout. The "zone layout " refers to dividing the surface of the disc into several parts, each zone being divided has a unique data recording density (i.e., data rate). Hereinafter, an example of a zone layout in the case of employing a zone bit recording method (or constant density recording) will be described with reference to FIG. 1.

Fig. 1 shows an example of the zone layout of a disk surface in which the zone bit recording method is adopted. First, the recording mode of the zone bit recording method is to make all zones including the inner zones and the outer zones have substantially the same information density in order to improve the information storage capacity of the magnetic disk, especially in a small disc drive recording apparatus. In a hard disk drive employing the zone bit recording method, the information storage area on the magnetic disk is divided into a plurality of zones whose recording density is constant in the radial direction from the centrifugation of the disk surface. The number of data sectors S is allocated differently for the tracks of each divided zone, that is, the tracks in the outer zone (zone 0) have a larger number of data sectors (tracks) than the tracks in the inner zone (zone N). Have S). This is because the length l of the outer circumference zone and the inner circumference zone is different within the rotation time t of the spindle motor. Therefore, if the data storage density is the same, more data is stored in the outer periphery.

However, in the conventional hard disk drive employing the zone bit recording method, since the zone layout is formed by the appropriate number of drive samples as described above, the following problem occurs. First of all, since the uniform zone layout is applied without considering the performance of each drive, drives that fall below the performance of the basic zone map are treated badly. This causes a loss in the production process, resulting in a decrease in production yield. In addition, even if the performance of the basic zone map is satisfied, some channels have sufficient margins, some channels are just, and some channels, depending on the channel (combination performance of the head, disk, and read / write channels). Rather, there is a lack of margin to achieve performance.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a zone layout setting method capable of setting an optimized capacity for each drive by optimizing the zone layout according to the performance of each drive.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a zone layout setting method for relieving a bad drive that may be generated due to a lack of channel characteristic margin of a drive.

The present invention for achieving the above object is a hard disk drive having a disk surface is divided into a plurality of zones, each zone having a zone table specified to have a different data rate,

Selecting any zone among the zones constituting the zone table, and sequentially varying all data rates constituting the zone table with the selected zone while detecting a data rate indicating a maximum error rate within a preset specification range; ,

The detected data rate corresponds to the selected zone, and the data rate corresponding to each of the remaining zones of the zone table is shifted in the same direction and size as the detected data rate is shifted to form a new zone table. It is characterized by.

1 is an example of a zone layout of a disk surface in which the zone bit recording method is adopted.

2 is a block diagram of a general hard disk drive.

3A and 3B illustrate a conventional zone table and a zone table configuration set according to an embodiment of the present invention, respectively.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a zone layout setting process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5A and 5B are diagrams illustrating zone layouts of a specific channel according to an embodiment of the present invention, respectively.

Hereinafter, an operation according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a general hard disk drive, showing an example of a hard disk drive having two disks 10 and four heads 12 corresponding thereto. Referring to FIG. 2, the disks 10 are mounted on a drive shaft of the spindle motor 34 in a stack form, and each disk surface corresponds to one head 12. Generally, the disk 10 is composed of a plurality of tracks arranged concentrically and is used for the parking zone and the bad sector where the head 12 can be located when the drive is not used (powered 'off' state). And a maintenance cylinder in which replacement information and information for various system maintenance are recorded. The maintenance cylinder stores values for changing the data rate. The head 12 is located on the surface of the disk 10 and is mounted to a vertically extending arm 14 of an annular voice coil motor (VCM) 28 arm assembly. The preamplifier 16 preamplifies and applies the read signal picked up by one of the heads 12 to the read / write channel 18 when reading data. Encoded write data applied from the write channel 18 is driven to drive the corresponding one of the heads 12 to be recorded on the disc 10. At this time, the preamplifier 16 selects one of the heads 12 under the control of a disk data controller (DDC) 36. The read / write channel 18 decodes the read signal applied from the preamplifier 16 to generate read data RDATA. The read / write channel 18 encodes the write data WDATA applied from the DDC 36 and applies it to the preamplifier 16. The read / write channel circuit 18 also demodulates the head position information which is a part of the servo information recorded on the disk 10 to generate a position error signal (PES). The PES generated from the read / write channel 18 is applied to the A / D converter 20, and the A / D converter 20 converts the applied PES into a digital step value corresponding to the level thereof to the microcontroller 22. To provide. The DDC 36 records the data received from the host computer on the disc 10 via the read / write channel 18 and the preamplifier 16 or transfers the data reproduced from the disc 10 to the host computer. The DDC 36 also interfaces the communication between the host computer and the microcontroller 22.

On the other hand, the microcontroller 22 controls the DDC 36 in response to a data read / write command received from the host computer and controls track search and track following. That is, the microcontroller 22 controls the track tracking by using the PES value input from the A / D converter 20, and responds to various servo control signals output from a gate array (not shown). Perform control. The D / A converter 24 converts a control value for position control of the heads 12 generated from the microcontroller 22 into an analog signal and outputs the analog signal. The VCM driver 26 generates a current I (t) for driving the actuator by a signal applied from the D / A converter 24 and applies it to the VCM 28. The VCM 28 located on the other side of the actuator having the heads 12 attached to one side moves the heads 12 horizontally on the disk 10 in response to the current direction and current level input from the VCM driver 26. Let's do it. The motor controller 30 controls the spindle motor driver 32 according to a control value for rotation control of the disks 10 generated from the microcontroller 22. The spindle motor driver 32 drives the spindle motor 34 to rotate the disks 10 under the control of the motor controller 30. The buffer memory 38 connected to the DDC 36 temporarily stores data transferred between the host computer and the drive, and the memory 40 connected to the microcontroller 22 is an embodiment of the present invention. The control program according to the present invention consists of a ROM and a RAM for storing various data generated during drive control.

3A and 3B show a conventional zone table and a zone table configuration diagram set according to an embodiment of the present invention, respectively. In FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B, the zone number represents the number of zones concentrically divided on the disk 10 side, DR represents a data rate (or data transfer rate) corresponding to each zone, and hd (head) represents a channel. Indicates. First, referring to FIG. 3A, a conventional zone table has the same data rate DR for all zones. In the following description, it is assumed that the conventional zone table is referred to as a "base table", and the base table is stored on the ROM of the memory 40. 3B illustrates a zone table in which a base table is extended by a zone layout setting process according to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3B, in the hd1, the data rate DR is the same as that of the base table for each zone, and in the other hd (0, 2, n), the data rate is different from the base table for each zone. If the value of the data rate DR located in the upper portion N 'is high and the value of the data rate DR located in the lower portion Z is low in the table of FIG. 3B, the increase or decrease of the data storage capacity is determined according to the position of the arrow. Will occur. That is, in FIG. 3B, hd0 and hdn can store more data by increasing the data rate DR when compared to the base table. This not only compensates for the lack of capacity of the hd2, but also provides the same margin by dispersing stress.

Hereinafter, a process of configuring a table as shown in FIG. 3B by setting an optimized data rate for each zone will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 4, 5A, and 5B.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a zone layout setting process according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 5A and 5B illustrate zone tables of a specific channel when setting a zone layout, respectively. First, referring to FIG. 4, the microcontroller 22 sets hd to “0” in step 50 and proceeds to step 52. In step 52, the microcontroller 22 sets the test cylinder, and then proceeds to step 54 to give a basic data rate DR. The test cylinder means any cylinder included in the selected zone after selecting one zone of respect divided into a plurality. The basic data rate DR means a data rate DR value corresponding to the selected zone in the base table. The microcontroller 22 giving the basic data rate DR then tests an error rate (called an error rate ER) in step 56. The microcontroller 22 then checks in step 58 whether the tested error rate ER is a value within the spec range. If the test result shows that the error rate (ER) is within the specification range, the microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 60 to increase the data rate DR by one step and then proceeds to step 62 to test the error rate. In step 64, the error rate ER has a value within the specification range. In this way, the microcontroller 22 checks whether the error rate has a value within the specification range while sequentially increasing the data rate DR. If the error rate ER exceeds the specification range in step 64, the microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 66 to determine the data rate DR immediately before the error rate ER is specified out of the selected zone. Determined by data rate (DR). The microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 68 to set the zone layout by shifting the data rate DR of all zones based on the data rate DR of the selected zone. Referring to FIG. 5A, the microcontroller 22 assumes that the test cylinder set in step 52 is a cylinder included in zone 3 (Z3) and that the data rate DR determined in step 66 is bMbps. In step 68, the data rate DR is shifted up by two levels based on the base table to set the zone layout. Accordingly, the data rates DR corresponding to zone 0 (Z0), zone 1 (Z1), ..., zone n (Zn) in hd0 are respectively b ', a', ... This results in an increase in data storage capacity of n-2 Mbps.

On the other hand, the microcontroller 22 that sets the zone layout for a specific channel, that is, hd0, checks in step 70 whether the currently set hd is the last (n) hd. 1 "increase and return to step 52. Thereafter, the microcontroller 22 repeats the above-described steps 52 to 72. If the error rate ER exceeds the specification range in step 58, the microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 74 to decrease the data rate DR by one step and then proceeds to step 76 to test the error rate ER. In step 78, it is again checked whether the error rate ER has a value within the specification range. If the error rate ER exceeds the specification range, the microcontroller 22 returns to step 74 and again decreases the data rate DR by one step to test the error rate. In this way, if the error rate ER is tested while reducing the data rate DR, and the error rate is determined to have a value within the specification range in step 78, the microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 80 and the error rate ER. The data rate DR specified in this specification is determined by the data rate DR of the currently set zone. The microcontroller 22 proceeds to step 68 to set the zone layout by shifting the data rate DR of all zones based on the currently selected zone and its corresponding data rate DR. For example, if the data rate DR of zone 0 (Z0) in hdn is determined to be cMbps, the data rate corresponding to zone 0 (Z0), zone 1 (Z1), ..., zone n (Zn) in hdn ( DR) becomes c, d, ..., n + 2 Mbps, respectively, as shown in the rightmost table of FIG. 5A, resulting in a reduction in data storage capacity.

In the above example, the zone layout is set by setting only a specific cylinder (that is, a specific zone), but the zone table may be configured by performing the same test for all zones. In addition, the zone table of the worst performing channel (minimum data storage capacity) may be simultaneously applied to all channels as shown in FIG. In this case, the process loss can be reduced by lack of data storage capacity and the trouble of reprocessing or reworking.

As described above, the present invention has the advantage of increasing and decreasing the data storage capacity by configuring a zone table for each channel characteristic in consideration of the channel characteristics of the hard disk drive, and is poorly processed due to insufficient margin of the data storage capacity. There are also benefits to avoid the hassle of reworking the drive and the resulting lower production yield.

Claims (1)

A hard disk drive having a disk surface divided into a plurality of zones and having a zone table in which each divided zone has a different data rate. Selecting any zone among the zones constituting the zone table, and sequentially varying all data rates constituting the zone table with the selected zone while detecting a data rate indicating a maximum error rate within a preset specification range; , The detected data rate corresponds to the selected zone, and the data rate corresponding to each of the remaining zones of the zone table is shifted in the same direction and size as the detected data rate is shifted to form a new zone table. Zone layout setting method characterized in that.

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