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Optimizing Vibration Isolation Of Flex Circuits In Hard Disk Drives, M. R. Brake, Jonathan A. Wickert

Jonathan A. Wickert

A "flex circuit" is a laminate of polyimide substrate, adhesive, and copper conductors that is used to connect the stationary electronic components in a computer hard disk drive to the rotating arm that positions read/write heads above the disks. The flex circuit's transverse and longitudinal vibrations couple with the arm, and those motions, although seemingly small, degrade performance during seek operations from one data track to another. The flex circuit and arm mechanism is defined by a number of geometric parameters, and some latitude is available at the design stage for choosing dimensions and angles so as to minimize vibration …