Patent ID: 7782731

Claim:
An optical hard disk drive, comprising: an enclosure; an optical data-storage media having at least one data recording surface, wherein the at least one data recording surface of the optical data-storage media comprises a plurality of concentric data tracks, and wherein the optical data-storage media is inside the enclosure; a motor to rotate the optical data-storage media; and a disk controller circuit inside the enclosure; and at least one optoelectronic component inside the enclosure and in communication with the disk controller circuit, wherein the optoelectronic component is positioned above a portion of the at least one data recording surface of the optical data-storage media, and wherein the at least one optoelectronic component comprises: a fixed, stationary array of microheads, wherein each microhead comprises at least one photo-emitter and at least one photo-detector, and wherein each microhead is positioned above a corresponding data track such that there is a microhead for each data track of the plurality of data tracks of the at least one data recording surface of the optical data-storage media; an address decoder circuit for selecting a multi-voltage level microhead select line in response to receipt of a multi-bit address from the disk controller circuit; a plurality of voltage comparators connected to the address decoder circuit for selecting one of the microheads of the array of microheads based on a voltage level of the microhead select line, wherein the plurality of voltage comparators each compare the voltage level of the microhead select line to a reference voltage wherein said plurality of voltage comparators simultaneously address individual microheads of said array of microheads, and wherein the array of microheads is positioned above a portion of the optical data-storage media such that the array is fixed and stationary relative to the rotating data-storage media and such that said microheads record data to and reconstruct data from the plurality of data tracks that are located concentrically across said data recording surface of said optical data-storage media.