Single-Ended Preamps Provide 25% Greater Data Rate

A 25% increase in data rate over previous designs is promised in a new family of single-ended preamplifiers for use with giant magneto-resistive heads. The chips are said to be well suited for future generations of low-cost desktop hard disk drives. The SR1710A, the first product from the 1710 family, supports a 500-Mbps user data rate, while maintaining the low power consumption and cost advantages of the single-ended platform. The preamp also offers drop-in compatibility with previous generation designs, providing disk drive engineers with an easy migration path from the company's 1610 preamp family of devices. The 1710 preamp family delivers top read/write performance, achieving noise rejection of 0.72 nV/(sqrt(Hz)) with 50 ohm GMR sensors and 0.6-ns write current rise/fall time with 90-nH thin-film heads. The single-ended architecture offers superior noise and power supply rejection rated at 65 dB nominal from 40 to 300 MHz. The 4-channel SR1710A is packaged in a 38-pin TSSOP and costs $3.95 each/100.