Spindle Motor Simulator for Hard Disk Drive: A Design Tool for Predicting Spinup Time and Headroom Safety for High Volume Manufacturing Available to Purchase

This paper presents a novel simulator for hard disk drive (HDD) spindle motor, developed to accelerate motor design verification for large volume product by predicting spin-up time (a performance metric) and voltage headroom (an important reliability metric). The simulator comprises of a BLDC (brushless DC) spindle motor model, firmware block, and power device block. The simulator integrates physics-based model structures with more complex measurement-based behavioral aspects at various temperatures and speeds. All model parameters incorporate realistic environmental factors and part variations; simulation of large sample size of in silico drive design based on Monte Carlo (MC) selection of parameters yields theoretical results capable of predicting defective parts per million in field. The simulator uses a modular approach allowing changing of firmware settings, details of Power Large Scale Integration (PLSI), and motor mechanics, which are product specific. This simulator model can be used for feasibility assessment of new electromechanical designs, available design margins for motor selection and it is also a reliable tool to provide boundaries for firmware (FW) settings to avoid reaching failure modes.