The TLS243xx family is a second generation of preamplifiers incorporating single-ended magnetoresistive (MR) technology. The new device enables designers in the highly competitive disk drive industry to increase drive density, reduce power and lower the cost per megabyte of storage.
The TLS243xx family of preamp devices incorporates TI's 5 V only single-ended preamp architecture. It features the performance levels required to support most mainstream and portable hard disk drive systems. Two, four, six, eight and ten head versions are available.
MR heads require a different preamp architecture and are more sensitive to magnetic fields than traditional standard inductive head technology. This allows disk drive designers to achieve areal densities of several gigabits per square inch without spinning the disks faster. TIís TLS243xx family has been designed using a current-bias, current-sense architecture, which is the architecture of choice for the vast majority of MR drives shipped to date.
The TLS243xx has been proven in production drive environments to operate in excess of 110 Mbps using a catalog PR4 read channel. TI also offers a family of differential preamp devices.
The TLS243xx is available in a thin-shrink-small-outline-package
(TSSOP), allowing the MR preamp to be placed on the drive's
head stack to reduce system noise that can compromise performance.
The use of a standard plastic package minimizes the need for expensive
chip-on-flex assembly. In addition to standard write and read
fault detection, TI has added thermal asperity (T/A) detection
to improve T/A recovery in the read channel. This family of preamps
also achieves fast write to read recovery times by allowing the
MR bias current to be active during the write mode. An additional
feature of the TLS243xx is the ability to reduce drive manufacturing
time by performing simultaneous multi-channel servo write.
Literature numbers and device names: (Use the keyword search provided in the Semiconductor Technical Documentation page.)
TLS243xx SQHS007A
Vol 15, February, 1996
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