Designing circuits for disk drives

The paper gives an overview on disk drive technology and how it determines the characteristics of the related electronics. Moreover, it details the resulting design methodology with an emphasis on system modeling and simulation. For instance, it is shown how key system properties, e.g. the seek time, can be determined through mixed simulation of mechanics, electronics and firmware. In addition, the same simulation environment is used to realistically verify analog and digital circuitry as well as software.