Toshiba Assigned Eight Patents

Disk device enclosure including laser welding peripheral edge portion of cover to base
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,711,187) developed by Okamoto, Makoto, Kodaira Tokyo, Japan, and Sasaki, Yasutaka, Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan, for a “disk device and method of manufacturing disk device enclosure including laser welding a peripheral edge portion of a cover to a base of the enclosure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a rotatable disk-shaped recording medium, an actuator supporting a head to be movable with respect to the recording medium, and an enclosure includes a base accommodating the recording medium and the actuator, and a cover fixed to the base and includes a peripheral edge portion including a welded portion laser-welded to the base. The welded portion includes weld beads arranged along the entire peripheral edge portion of the cover, and the weld beads include at least two circular weld beads in the peripheral edge portion of the cover.“

The patent application was filed on March 11, 2016 (15/067,584).

Magnetic recording and reading
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,711,172) developed by Teguri, Hironori, Yamato Kanagawa, Japan, for a “magnetic recording device and reading method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, a magnetic disk device includes a disk including a tracks including a servo region, a light irradiator configured to irradiate the disk with light and heat the disk with the light, a head including a write head configured to write data in a range irradiated and heated with the light, and a read head configured to read data from the tracks, a controller configured to write first data to be used for offset detection in a first region of the tracks, read the first data from the first region with reference to servo data in the servo region, detect an offset of the read head based on an amplitude of a first signal of the first data, and control a position of the read head based on the offset.“

The patent application was filed on March 31, 2016 (15/087,252).

Storage device, controller
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,710,197) developed by Umeda, Michihiko, Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan, Masuyama, Hidekazu, Kawasaki Kanagawa, Japan, Sugawara, Nobuhiro, Nagashima, Yasuyuki, Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan, Toda, Seiji, Kawasaki Kanagawa, Japan, and Kuji, Takato, Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan, for a “storage device, controller, and method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, A storage device includes a magnetic disk, a head, and a control unit. The magnetic disk includes a plurality of physical sectors having a first length. A logical block having a second length shorter than the first length, and a redundant area having a length of the difference between the first length and the second length are assigned for the physical sectors. The head reads the data from the physical sector of the magnetic disk. The control unit controls to change the second length of the logical block while maintaining the first length of the physical sector in response to reception of a change request for changing the second length of the logical block from a host.“

The patent application was filed on September 3, 2015 (14/845,218).

Hybrid-HDD policy for what host-R/W data goes into NAND
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,703,699) developed by Ehrlich, Richard M., Saratoga, CA, and Dunn, Eric R., Cupertino, CA, for a “hybrid-HDD policy for what host-R/W data goes into NAND.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a cache policy for a hybrid drive having a magnetic storage device and a non-volatile solid-state device, the hybrid drive is configured to write the most recent version of data associated with a logical block address to the non-volatile solid-state device when the logical block address is associated with previously written data and is overlapped by a subsequent disk write operation. Advantageously, the most recent version of data associated with the overlapped logical block address is stored in cache in the non-volatile solid-state device, even when the subsequent disk write operation results in the overlapped logical block address being trimmed from cache or otherwise invalidated. Consequently, data associated with the overlapped logical block address can be accessed more quickly than data written to the magnetic storage device.“

The patent application was filed on September 17, 2014 (14/489,365).

Writing spirals with accurate slope on disk drive media
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,691,421) developed by Szita, Gabor, Mountain View, CA, Liang, Jiangang, San Jose, CA, Zhang, Li, Fremont, CA, and Calfee, Gary W., Santa Clara, CA, for a “writing spirals with accurate slope on a disk drive media.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A reference spiral is written on a recording surface of a magnetic storage disk that is free of position or timing information. The reference spirals are written on the recording surface with a substantially uniform slope by using open loop control of the position of a read/write head in conjunction with an iterative learning control scheme. A voltage profile applied to a voice coil motor is adapted over multiple iterations of moving the read/write head across the recording surface to closely approximate a target voltage profile, and the reference spiral is written using the adapted voltage profile. In addition, ramp contact detection based on actuator current profile may be employed to achieve full utilization of available actuator stroke.“

The patent application was filed on March 31, 2015 (14/675,458).

Measurement circuit for microwave assisted magnetic recording
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,691,415) developed by Koui, Katsuhiko, Yokohama Kanagawa, Japan, for a “measurement circuit for microwave assisted magnetic recording.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a disk includes a recording layer, a recording head includes a main pole configured to apply a recording magnetic field onto the recording layer, and a microwave oscillator adjacent to the main pole, configured to apply a microwave magnetic field to the recording layer, a current supply circuit configured to supply a current to the microwave oscillator, and a switching circuit configured to switch a direction of current flow to the microwave oscillator.“

The patent application was filed on February 11, 2016 (15/041,585).

Disk device and storing data and associated headers
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,665,285) developed by Shimokawa, Hideo, Ome Tokyo, Japan, and Yoshida, Kenji, Kamakura Kanagawa, Japan, for a “disk device and method for storing data and associated headers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, a magnetic disk device includes a memory including a first storage area and a second storage area different from the first storage area, and a controller configured to generate a compressed data compressing input data, generate a header data related to a compressed data group including a plurality of compressed data, generate a packet data including the compressed data group and the header data, store the packet data in the first storage area, and store the header data in the second storage area.“

The patent application was filed on June 5, 2015 (14/731,451).

Storage controller
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,633,691) developed by Kondo, Yosuke, and Yoshida, Kenji, Kanagawa, Japan, for a “storage controller, storage device, and method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage controller includes a control unit and an interface. The control unit, when write data input as data to be written onto a magnetic disk includes a bit string of a first pattern, inverts one or more bits of the bit string. The write data includes a redundancy bit string used for data error correction. The interface outputs write data including bit inverted by the control unit.“

The patent application was filed on March 4, 2016 (15/060,935).