Head Slider Flying Height Measurement Using a Color Image Processing Technique

Abstract

A new method was developed to measure the head slider flying height in magnetic disk devices. The interference color fringe created in the clearance between slider and the glass disk was characterized by using a color image processing technique. The relation between hue and the flying height was obtained within a 0.0073 micrometer error. The presented method makes use of the phase difference among RGB signals, so it does not depend on the light intensity distribution in the TV field, which comes from optical devices. In addition, the presented method gives spatially continuous flying height attitude with a high resolution over a wide range.