Channels Engineering in Magnetic Recording: From Theory to Practice
Shayan Srinivasa Garani, Bane V. Vasic · IEEE BITS the Information Theory Magazine · 2023
Information theory, coding theory and signal processing have significantly shaped magnetic read/write channels engineering through a chronological sequence of innovations and research advancements, cognizant of the underlying physical processes. In this magazine article, we provide an overview of magnetic recording technologies leading to the channels engineering aspects, central to this article. We survey important coding and signal processing algorithms along with some design architectures that have made it to practice with in hard disk drives (HDDs) for magnetic recording channels. The push towards realizing ultra-high densities (> 4Tb/in2) on magnetic disks with ultra-high throughput rates (> 10Gb/s) necessitates the development of native two-dimensional (2D) coding and signal processing algorithms and architectures within the framework of two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) along with read head engineering and changes to the recording physics. We also provide an overview of novel channels engineering solutions covering all aspects of TDMR channels driven from a systems science perspective. The innovations and research advances described in this article may serve a broad engineering audience in other areas as well