Patent ID: 8724249
Filing Date: 2014-05-13
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
1. A magnetic recording disk drive comprising: a disk drive base; a rotatable magnetic recording disk mounted to the base and having a plurality of data tracks; an air-bearing slider maintained near the surface of the disk when the disk is rotating; a read/write head on the slider and including a read element for reading from the data tracks and a write element for writing to the data tracks; a fly-height sensor on the slider for generating a head-disk spacing signal; a head-positioning actuator for moving the slider and attached head to selected data tracks; an arm electronics (AE) module mounted to the actuator and electrically coupled to the read/write head and the fly-height sensor, the AE module including a read amplifier for amplifying the signal from the read element and a write driver for sending the write signal to the write element; a channel electronics module fixed relative to the base; a flex cable connecting the AE module to the channel electronics module and including read path leads for the amplified signal from the read amplifier to the channel electronics module and for the head-disk spacing signal to the channel electronics module and write path leads for the write signal from the channel electronics module to the write driver; wherein the AE module further comprises: a switch coupled to the multiplexer for selecting the amplified read signal to be transmitted on the read path leads during reading of data from the data tracks by the read element and for selecting the VGA oscillatory output signal to be transmitted on the read path leads during writing of data to the data tracks by the write element.