EMERGENCY POWER OFF (EPO) ISLAND FOR SAVING CRITICAL DATA TO NON-VOLATILE MEMORY

摘要

Approaches for an emergency power off (EPO) power island, for saving critical data to non-volatile memory in the event of an EPO condition, for use in a hard-disk drive (HDD) storage device. The EPO power island includes a controller for detecting an EPO condition. A voltage regulator supplies power from spindle motor back EMF only to the EPO power island and to the non-volatile memory. Thus, the remainder of the hard drive controller (HDC) is isolated from the EPO power island so that it will not corrupt the data as the HDC's power supply is decaying. Using the power provided by the voltage regulator, the EPO power island transfers critical data from a memory internal to the island to a non-volatile memory external to the island, such as to a flash memory chip.

主权项

1. A hard-disk drive, comprising:
a magnetic-recording disk rotatably mounted on a spindle; a head slider, housing a read/write head for writing data to and reading data from the magnetic-recording disk; a voice coil motor configured to move the head slider to access portions of the magnetic-recording disk; a hard drive controller electronic component; a motor driver configured for supplying power to a spindle motor; a voltage regulator configured for supplying power to said hard drive controller; non-volatile memory for storage of data; wherein said hard disk controller comprises an emergency power off (EPO) power island comprising:
an EPO power island controller configured for detecting an EPO condition, anda non-volatile memory interface configured for transferring data from memory internal to said EPO island to said non-volatile memory; and wherein said voltage regulator is configured for supplying power from said motor driver only to said EPO power island portion of said hard drive controller and to said non-volatile memory, to isolate said EPO power island portion and said non-volatile memory in response to said EPO condition.