DALLAS, December 11, 1995 -- Texas Instruments today introduced its 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 single-ended MR preamplifier is just one of an entire suite of TI products for the hard disk drive industry. These products, a line of Digital Signal Processing Solutions (DSPS) optimized for hard disk drive applications, include voice coil motor (VCM)/spindle motor controllers and drivers, DSP-based controllers, read channels, SCSI interfaces and system memory. TI is the leading supplier of DSP solutions for hard disk drive systems.
The TLS243xx family of preamp devices incorporates TI's +5V 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 10 head versions are available.
"TI's adoption and implementation of single-ended MR technology in this new family of preamplifiers underscores TI's confidence in single-ended MR technology as the technology of choice for mainstream hard drives," said Deames Davis, Mixed Signal Marketing Manager of TI's Hard Disk Drive Business Unit. "With our worldwide design and manufacturing focus, TI is in a strong position to reduce the time to volume production as MR technology enters drives targeting the mainstream and portable PC markets."
MR heads require a different preamp architecture and are more sensitive to magnetic field than traditional, standard inductive head technology, allowing disk drive designers to achieve areal densities of several gigabits per square inch without spinning the disks faster. TI's 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.
TI's first family of single-ended MR preamplifiers (TLS241xx) was introduced in March 1995. The TLS243xx represents TI's second generation of single-ended pre-amp devices, designed specifically to optimize MR hard disk drive performance. 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 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.
The TLS243xx devices are available now from Texas Instruments. Suggested resale pricing of the TLS24306 in TSSOP packaging is $6.00 each in quantities of 1,000.
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