Magnetic Recording

An overview of the science and technology of magnetic recording. This book contains a discussion of almost every technologically important aspect of recording, including such topics as the fundamental physics and measurements of magnetism and magnetic materials, and the write and read processes.

"The first magnetic recording device was demonstrated and patentedby the Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen in 1898. Poulsen made amagnetic recording of his voice on a length of piano wire. MAGNETICRECORDING traces the development of the watershed products and thetechnical breakthroughs in magnetic recording that took placeduring the century from Paulsen's experiment to today's ubiquitousaudio, video, and data recording technologies including taperecorders, video cassette recorders, and computer harddrives. An international author team brings a unique perspective, drawnfrom professional experience, to the history of magnetic recordingapplications. Their key insights shed light on how magneticrecording triumphed over all competing technologies andrevolutionized the music, radio, television and computerindustries. They also show how these developments offeropportunities for applications in the future. MAGNETIC RECORDING features 116 illustrations, including 92photographs of historic magnetic recording machines and theirinventors." Sponsored by: IEEE Magnetics Society

This book is a comprehensive text on the theory of the magnetic recording process.

Today magnetic recording is still the leading technology for mass data storage. Its dominant role is being reinforced by the success of cloud computing, which requires storing and managing huge amounts of data on a multitude of servers. Nonetheless, the hard-disk storage industry is presently at a crossroads as the current magnetic recording technologies are unable of achieving densities beyond 1 Tbit/in2. Pushing the recording density in the terabit regime requires new storage materials, novel recording schemes, and media designs in order to solve signal-to-noise ratio, thermal stability, and writability issues. In this book, worldwide experts from universities, public research institutions, and industry collaborate to illustrate the most recent progresses in magnetic recording from the media perspective and to highlight the future prospects of the technology. Theoretical, experimental, and technological aspects are covered in a clear and comprehensive way, making the book a useful reference for final-year undergraduates, postgraduates, and research professionals in the magnetic recording area. The first two chapters introduce the fundamentals of magnetism and magnetic recording and are useful to guide the reader in the chapters that follow. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 focus on the materials for conventional perpendicular recording media, next-generation recording media, and exchange-coupled composite media. The most promising technologies for next-generation magnetic recording, i.e., energy assisted and bit-patterned recording, are extensively treated in chapters 6 and 7, while chapter 8 covers the techniques and protocols for magnetic characterization of recording media. Finally, chapter 9 gives an overview of the emerging classes of magnetic memories.

Application-oriented book on magnetic recording, focussing on the underlying physical mechanisms that play crucial roles in medium and transducer development for high areal density disk drives.

Implementing new architectures and designs for the magnetic recording read channel have been pushed to the limits of modern integrated circuit manufacturing technology. This book reviews advanced coding and signal processing techniques and architectures for magnetic recording systems. Beginning with the basic principles, it examines read/write operations, data organization, head positioning, sensing, timing recovery, data detection, and error correction. It also provides an in-depth treatment of all recording channel subsystems inside a read channel and hard disk drive controller. The final section reviews new trends in coding, particularly emerging codes for recording channels.

When I started in magnetic recording nearly fifty years ago, it was easy to perceive the common sense of it. There was very little mathematics and every new finding was a source of wonder. I have tried to recapture this spirit with simple explanations, while maintaining a high density of infonnation and cov ering the entire field. This book introduces a novice to magnetic recording and its many branches. It includes reference data for designers and users. Each chapter stands by itself; no prerequisites are essential. For a quick survey, the equations and worked out examples can be disregarded. The magnetic recording art is changing so rapidly that new advances are announced almost every month. These are properly covered by journal articles and manufacturers' catalogs. This book will fulfil its purpose if it gives a back ground for easily comprehending the new advances. I have included subjects and devices not found elsewhere, and some unconventional viewpoints. I would welcome comments from readers. To Jay McKnight I am deeply grateful for important suggestions and helpful comments. I appreciate also the help of BASF, John Boyers, Joseph Dundovic, Charles Ginsburg, Peter Hammar, Yasuo Imaoka, Hal Kaitchuk, Otto Kornei, Harold Miller, Jack Mullin, Jim Novak, Lenard Perlman, Carl Powell, Sidney Rubens, John Shennan, Shigeo Shima, Heinz Thiele, Yoshimi Watanabe and many others; and to my daughter Ruth for typing.