SPINDLE MOTOR SIMULATOR for

HARD DISK DRIVES: A design tool

for predicting spin up time and
headroom safety for high volume
manufacturing
Authors: Sandip Kulkarni, Nasim Mirnateghi, JiangHong Ding, Ashok Desai

Presenter: Sandip D Kulkarni, PhD,

Electro-Mechanical Systems /Servo-Electronics
June 21, 2016

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is an integration of several subsystems operating
synchronously.
Simulator for HDD Spindle System
Spin Up time time required to reach operating speed is a significant component of the total
time for drive to be ready (TTR)
Voltage Headroom voltage available for motor to spin after overcoming back-emf and other
opposing loads at operational speed
Depend on motor parameter variations
Input variation: power large scale integration limits, and firmware (FW) settings

Monte Carlo Simulations

Determine reliability for drive-to-drive variability
Physical effects of temperature on key drive electromechanical parameters such as Ke (motor
back EMF constant), resistance of winding, and viscous friction of motor bearing.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 2

Methods
Spindle Spin Up simulator consists of three
blocks: 1) Spindle Model 2) Power Device and
3) Firmware
Spindle Model consists all electromechanical
parameters and measurements based
variables
Firmware block consists of firmware set
torque optimizer limits, control cases such as
open loop vs closed loop, and current and
DAC limits.
Power device block consists of voltage drop
from supply to power line due to FETS, DAC
logic for choosing between full DAC or other
possible methods
The main output is RPM at various times.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 3

 Electromechanical Models: Parameters
Motor Parameters Specifications
Total Rotational Inertia
# of Pole Pairs
Rwinding
Lwinding
Kepk
Drag Torque
Nominal Temperature
VCM Current
VCM DragTorque
Simulation Settings
Simulation Type
Model Type
Simulation Temperature
Simulation Time
Initial / Target Speed
Initial Position

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 4

Electromechanical Models: Spin Up Operation

Power Device: Condensed form of spindle motor model:

The power device block input Vs is transformed
to VLine, after considering drop across power-line, k VLine ke IRDrop
and VLine is tunable in many custom ways using RPM = t c dt (uc)

FW feedback as a function of DAC. J L
VLine = (VSupply IRFETDrop ) * f ( DAC )

Spindle Model: kt and ke =motor constants,

Vline is the main input and RPM is the main J = spindle inertia,
output of Spindle
Intermediate Outputs:Torque, Imotor, power
L = the inductance (phase-to-phase),
consumption and BEMF R = the resistance (phase-to-phase),
FW outputs can improve motor performance
based on type of schemes used.
c = the friction coefficient,
uc = appropriate unit conversion

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 5

Spindle Motor Model with FW & Power Device

Page 6
Simulations and Results: Spin Up Operation
Monte Carlo simulations are iterations of
spin up simulation from initial time to
target speed.
Each iteration uses motor parameters
randomly selected within normal
distribution of tolerance of the
parameters
Temperature compensation is used for
parameters. E.g.
Ke = Ke (1+(Operating Temperature-Nominal
Temperature)(0.001))
R = R(1+0.003*(Operating-Nominal+VCM))
VCM delta temp is heat radiating from drive
enclosure.

Mean and Sigma of acceleration time is

added to startup time to calculate total
spin up time.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 7

Simulation Results: Spin Up Operation
Predicts acceleration spin up timethe time starting after the motor has already
detected position using inductance based position algorithms or sensor, and ending
upon reaching the target speed
Acceleration Spin Up is major portion of total time required for drive to be ready
after spindle reaches full operational speed and heads are loaded on media.
Acceleration time is totally governed by motor physics.
Addition of acceleration spin up time, initial position detection time, head loading
time, and all other times for drive readiness are used for determination of time-to-
ready or TTR.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 8

Electromechanical Models: Headroom Assessment

Voltage Headroom
Voltage Headroom is the amount of available
voltage to drive the spindle motor at operating
speed after overcoming the system loads and
back emf voltage.
Condensed form representation:
VHeadroom = VSupply VDriver = VSupply ke
Total load IRDrop :
drop due to run currenttotal current required IR
to overcome composite reaction torque Ttotal
prohibiting spindle motion that includes windage
and viscous friction,
on total impedance (winding resistance and
inductance), this also includes other drive loads
IRDrop such as drop due to sine mode current on isofet
resistor, and VCA drop

ke = motor voltage constant V/kRPM, IRDrop = I R Rtotal + I Circuit RCircuit

Vsupply = supply voltage,
RDrop = the impedance load,
= rotational speed in kRPM, Ttotal
Run Current, I R =
kt

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 9

Spindle Voltage Headroom Design Criteria

Voltage headroom is the amount of available voltage remaining when a drive

is spinning at its maximum speed, at low temperature and low voltage, that
can be delivered to the motor.
Individual components of voltage headroom:
Supply Voltage
Back-EMF Voltage
Isupply x Risofet voltage drop across isolation FET.
This includes VCM and Spindle Motor current synced through isofet
Isupply x Rsense voltage drop across sense resistor
May or may not be available depending upon vendor.
Imotor x Rmotor voltage drop across coil resistance.
Imotor x Rflex voltage drop across the flex resistance.

Page
WD Confidential 10
Basic Equations

WD Confidential
Page 11
Headroom constraint

WD Confidential
Page 12
Monte Carlo Simulation Result of Voltage Headroom

Distribution of headroom for various

drive parameter variations are shown on
the right.
But, for design, use worst case
temperature of 0 deg. C and 0 electrical
degrees torque optimizer.
Minimum and maximum of headroom
shows the available margin for
estimating further parameter change.
Failures for any parameter combinations
shown in red are saved and can be
analyzed.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 13

Conclusions

The spindle simulator demonstrated prediction of spindle performance and

reliability, by simulating acceleration spin up time and headroom metrics.
Predicting spin up time can significantly allow improvements in design
parameters and eventually drive ready times.
Predicting DPPM of headroom failure and spin up performance resulting from
parameter variations can provide insight into drive design and failure analysis.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 14

I like engineering
but I love create
input.
John Dykstra

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved.

2016 Western Digital Corporation or affiliates. All rights reserved. 16