Western Digital Assigned Three Patents

Storage device evaluating frequency range
of supply voltage to detect power failure
Western Digital Technologies, Irvine, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,498,172) developed by Charles R. Patton III, Murrieta, CA, and Norman D. Gardner, Mission Viejo, CA, for a "storage device evaluating frequency range of supply voltage to detect power failure."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A storage device (DSD) is disclosed comprising a non-volatile memory (NVM), such as a disk or non-volatile semiconductor memory, and control circuitry for detecting a power failure condition. A frequency range of a supply voltage from a first frequency to a second frequency is extracted, wherein the first frequency is greater than ten hertz, the second frequency is higher than the first frequency, and the second frequency is less than one megahertz. The power failure condition is detected in response to the extracted frequency range of the supply voltage."

Disk drive implementing
read channel optimization process
Western Digital Technologies, Irvine, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,493,679) developed by Douglas M. Boguslawski, Lyons, CO, and Kameron Kam-Wai Jung, Yorba Linda, CA, for "disk drive implementing a read channel optimization process."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk including a plurality of tracks, a head actuated over the disk, and control circuitry. The control circuitry is operable to: write a target track including a plurality of data wedges; determine optimization metrics for the data wedges of the plurality of data wedges as the data wedges are read; store the optimization metrics for the data wedges from the target track; and remove a first portion and a second portion of the optimization metrics such that a remaining portion of the optimization metrics remains. Further, the control circuitry is operable to calculate an average optimization metric value for the remaining portion of optimization metrics for use in read channel optimization."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 5, 2012 (13/603,854).

Storage device tester
Western Digital Technologies, Irvine, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,458,526) developed by Lawrence J. Dalphy, Mission Viejo, CA, and Curtis E. Stevens, and Daniel K. Blackburn, Irvine, CA, for a "storage device tester."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A storage device (DSD) tester for testing a DSD is disclosed. The DSD tester comprises control circuitry operable to receive a DSD log from the DSD, wherein the DSD log comprises at least one entry identifying at least one error condition. A sequence of commands associated with the error condition is executed in order to determine whether the DSD is defective."

The patent application was filed on March 29, 2010 (12/749,309)