Patent ID: 7684296

Claim:
An information recording/reproducing apparatus for recording or reproducing information on or from an information recording medium having a plurality of recording layers stacked on a substrate, comprising: an optical head for recording or reproducing information on or from the recording layers by use of an optical beam; a spindle motor for rotating the recording medium; and a drive voltage holding circuit for holding a drive voltage of the spindle motor when the optical head performs switching between the recording layers for recording/reproducing, wherein a wobble for generating a clock is formed on the recording medium, and further comprising: a frequency generator (FG) circuit for generating an FG signal of a frequency which is proportional to a rotation number of the spindle motor; a wobble phase locked loop (PPL) circuit for outputting a clock which is synchronous with the wobble and a rotation number information of the spindle motor from a reproduced signal of the recording medium; a lock detection circuit for detecting whether the wobble PLL circuit is in a locked state or in an unlocked state; a spindle motor control circuit for controlling the rotation of the spindle motor based on an output from the FG circuit or the wobble PLL circuit; and a switching circuit for switching rotational control of the spindle motor control circuit to a control based on the output of the FG circuit in a case where the lock detection circuit detects an unlocked state of the wobble PLL circuit, and to a control based on an output of the wobble PLL circuit in a case where the lock detection circuit detects a locked state of the wobble PLL circuit; wherein the spindle motor control circuit comprises a subtractor for taking a difference between a desired value and a rotational frequency value, and a loop filter for performing calculation based on an output of the subtractor, and wherein the drive voltage holding circuit holds the drive voltage of the spindle motor by stopping the calculation of the loop filter.