Patent ID: 6961292

Claim:
An apparatus generating a seek direction detecting signal for an optical pickup, comprising: a light dividing unit dividing an incident light beam into at least two beams including a main beam and a sub-beam so that at least two beam spots, including a main beam spot and at least one sub-beam spot having an optical aberration, can be focused in a track direction of an optical disk, wherein a direction of the optical aberration of the sub-beam spot is a tangential direction of the optical disk, and the main beam spot and the sub-beam spot are formed to be aligned along a same track of the optical disk; an optical detector unit including: a first optical detector receiving the main beam, and converting the portions of the received beam into electrical signals independent of each other, and a second optical detector receiving the sub-beam and converting the portions of the received beam into electrical signals independent of each other, wherein the first and second optical detectors comprise a plurality of light receiving portions; a signal processing portion including: a first signal processing portion processing a track error signal from the signals output from the first optical detector, and a second signal processing portion processing a track cross signal from the signals output from the second optical detector; and a generator generating the seek direction detecting signal from a phase difference between the track cross signal and the track error signal.