Method and apparatus for cooling GMR heads for magnetic hard disks

摘要

A thermoelectric cooling (TEC) device is thermally coupled, in close proximity, to a GMR head chip. When power is applied to the TEC device, heat is extracted from the GMR head chip by heat transfer to the cold end of the TEC device and rejected by heat pipes or cooling fins along the slider arm, in one embodiment. In another embodiment, a TEC device is integrated with the GMR head chip such that the cold end of the TEC device is physically and thermally coupled with the GMR head chip. Heat is transferred from the GMR head chip to a thermal spreader pad on the 'hot' end of the integrated GMR/TEC device.