Silicon microstructures and microactuators for compact computer disk drives

It is projected that in another five years, the industry will be capable of delivering credit-card size gigabyte disk drive cartridges at about 10 cents per megabyte. At UCLA and Caltech, we believe silicon micromachining technology will play an important role in the fabrication of high-bandwidth, servo-controlled miniaturized microelectromechanical components for such super-high-capacity, super-compact computer disk drives. For the past four years, we have been collaborating on a number of industry and government supported joint research projects to develop the necessary technology building blocks for design of a low-cost integrated drive of the future. These efforts include the design and fabrication of a silicon read/write head, microgimbaled with integrated electrical and mechanical interconnects, which targets the next-generation, 30 percent form factor pico-sliders. The efforts also include an electromagnetic piggyback planar microactuator for super-high-track-density applications. Both efforts utilize state-of-the-art silicon micromachining fabrication techniques.