System and method for early disc drive fault detection

摘要

Apparatus and method for the early detection of faults in a head-disc assembly (HDA) from a disc drive manufacturing process. Parametrics are obtained from an HDA at a parametric station and provided to a pattern recognition system for estimating an error rate category from the measured HDA parametrics. The estimated error rate category and the parametrics are provided to a fuzzy inferencing system, which uses linguistic rules to classify the HDA as GOOD, MARGINAL or BAD, based upon the parametrics and the estimated error rate category. HDAs classified as GOOD or MARGINAL continue processing through dynamic burn-in (DBI), while HDAs classified as BAD are subjected to rework. The pattern recognition system includes a reference database containing historical parametric and associated error rate data, which is updated over time by the subsequent inclusion of selected parametrics and measured error rates for HDAs subjected to DBI.