WITE Revision 1.241 Release Notes

New Hardware Features:

• New revision of Chip Adapter Interface Board, Error Rate Analyzer Board, Pattern generator allow the RWA equipped with PRML channel to run at higher data rates up to 320 Mbits/S. This feature can be utilized when new faster PRML Channel chips will be available.

• The support of HeadAdapter TLS24508+2212 MR has been added.

• The support for scissors type head loading and unloading mechanism for head stacks in S1701 spinstands has been added.

New Software Features:

• New Signal to Noise (SpAnSNR) test.

Signal to Noise test that makes use of new Spectrum Analyzer board has been implemented. The test can work in two modes:

Background noise measurements.

Frequencies of all signal harmonics in the predefined range are being calculated and the harmonic amplitudes are being measured. Noise level measurements are performed in between them.

If during the noise measurement the frequency is in 2.4MHz vicinity of some k-th harmonic the point of measurement is skipped thus being excluded from the summation. Even harmonics are considered as the signal.


Noise level After erasing.

An arbitrary signal can be written and the TAA is being measured with specified Increment within the Spectrum Range. Then the measurements are repeated after erasure. Erase Option include High/Low Current, Positive/Negative Direction, Mode.

• Performance of some tests from Composite group ( Frequency, Saturation, MR saturation ) has been improved by 20-30% on average.

• Message/Lock feature support was made exactly as in the GPTE ( see WITE Configure | System ). Each time the "Start Test" button pressed from the operator panel the system checks the following:

1. If the Lock File exists the system will display this file; The test will abort.

2. If the Message File exists: The system will display this file; The system will query the user whether to delete the message file; The test will continue normally.

• Result output of PW in Inches was added to PWN Asymmetry and PW tests.

• The old WROFFSET module doesn't exist anymore and the WROFFSET test is now a part of WMRTESTS module.

Bugs fixed:

• If in order to bypass the spinstand IPL operation the flashing button was pressed too quickly, the messages "Driver installation error 4005", "Timeout on receiving data" popped up and the system hung up.

• Track Table similar to 1701 was introduced instead of zones for 312MP.Track distance can be set with a resolution of 1 Inch instead of 1 microstep. Absolute locations of tracks are calculated with the resolution of a linear scale step instead of a microstep and the error associated with the old zone structure is eliminated.

• Linear scale step is set with a 6 digit precision instead of 3 digit. Before it was causing a linear positioning error of approximately 1 % in offset operations .

• Support for scissors type loading-unloading mechanism for 1701 headstacks. This mechanism provides loading and unloading of heads in a headstack parallel to the disk.

• System couldn't start a spinstand normally if the initial RPM specified was less than 1200.

• If PRML patterns were used in the Error Rate test, then the number of bits per revolution was calculated incorrectly. Also in sector mode the number of sectors was not accounted.

• In the Amplitude Stability Test the read gate was not restored correctly if "Gated" option was enabled.

• The half track write gate was not used in "Gated" option. It always used the current write gate for writing.

• If option "Skip failed head" was enabled, and a head failed in the 1st zone, the next zone was not measured/displayed which was correct. However if a subsequent head was passed in the 1st zone then in the 2nd zone it was measured but not displayed.

• The error message "State changing queue full" popped up with no reason meaning the malfunction in the internal WITE communication.

• If the runtime failure option in the Production test is not "ignore", the run time grade result was always displayed regardless of the grading enabled option flag.

• "Divide by zero" error message popped up intermittently in the Test Chip Parameter Optimization.

• In the Chip Parameter Optimization test parameter name on CPO plot didn't correspond to the selected parameter in the test configuration.

• Zone/setup collection display on DblClick in the ChipAdapter menu didn't work.

• PRML ADC delay calibration and PRML levels calibration didn't work properly in case of EEPR4 type.

• In a situation when the bias current is required and one of the head amplifiers is disconnected, there was no bias current in the connected one.

• In the MR Saturation during TAA Asymmetry calculation the same TAA Pos. and TAA Neg. values were taken for all iterations.

• Soft Button in the operator panel if assigned to Select Head didn't work properly (previous state was displayed incorrectly after return to Head Selection window).

• RWA 1001/1601 didn't not generate soft sector pulses if device was off. If device was on, the system would only generate correct numbers of soft sector pulses up to 5.

• RWA1001/1601 in soft sector mode, if a gate length is longer than the sector length, generated this long gate duration for the sector length. Hence, the number of sectors in soft sector mode was wrong.

• If the ASCII file output is enabled and "User defined filename" is used, and the filename was changed then after the next pass the WResult will raise an error "Invalid character in filename" at the end of a test.