US-12625120-B2 - Systems, methods, and devices for monitoring a gaseous oxidizing agent in a data storage device, and related systems, methods, and devices

US12625120B2US 12625120 B2US12625120 B2US 12625120B2US-12625120-B2

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to devices, circuits, and methods of determining power consumption in an electronic device (e.g., HDD) so that the determined power consumption can be used to determine a concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in an interior gas space of the sealed enclosure and/or actively supply gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device if the determined power consumption is below a threshold value.

Inventors

Patrick M. Thomas
Bijoyendra Nath
Roger J. Kassab
Scott R. Warmka
Mark A. Gaertner
Abbas Ali

Assignees

SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20230928

Claims (20)

1 . A method of monitoring a concentration of a gaseous oxidizing agent component in an electronic device, wherein the method comprises: determining a power consumption of one or more electrical components disposed in a sealed enclosure of the electronic device; and determining the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in an interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on at least the determined power consumption, and actively supplying the gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device if the determined power consumption is below a threshold value.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more electrical components are chosen from a spindle motor, a voice coil motor assembly, and combinations thereof.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the power consumption comprises: providing a signal indicative of current being used by at least one of the one or more electrical components; and calculating the power consumption of the at least one electrical component based on the signal.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on at least the determined power consumption comprises comparing the determined power consumption of one or more electrical components to a previously determined correlation between the determined power consumption of one or more electrical components and the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space of the sealed enclosure is based on one or more sensors i) disposed within the sealed enclosure and ii) configured to sense a physical parameter within the sealed enclosure, and wherein the one or more sensors are chosen from at least one temperature sensor, at least one pressure sensor, at least one oxygen sensor, at least one thermal conductivity sensor, at least one electrochemical sensor, at least one optical sensor, at least one relative humidity sensor, and combinations thereof.
6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising: comparing the determined concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component to a threshold concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component; and actively supplying the gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device if the determined concentration is below the threshold concentration of gaseous oxidizing agent component.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the threshold concentration is 3 mole percent based on the total gas in the interior gas space.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the gaseous oxidizing agent component comprises oxygen, and wherein the gaseous oxidizing agent component is present in a gaseous mixture with at least helium.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the power consumption comprises monitoring a signal from a power supply indicative of power delivered to the one or more electrical components.
10 . An electronic device comprising: a sealed enclosure having an interior gas space; one or more electrical components disposed in the sealed enclosure; a power supply in electrical communication with the one or more electrical components; and circuitry in electrical communication with the power supply and configured to: monitor a signal from the power supply indicative of power delivered to the one or more electrical components, determine a power consumption of at least one of the electrical components disposed in the sealed enclosure of the electronic device based on the monitored signal, determine a concentration of a gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on at least the determined power consumption, and actively supply the gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space if the determined power consumption is below a threshold value.
11 . The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more electrical components are chosen from a spindle motor, a voice coil motor assembly, and combinations thereof.
12 . The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the circuitry comprises: a first component configured to receive at least one signal from the power supply and provide at least one signal indicative of current used by at least one of the one or more electrical components; and a second component configured to calculate power consumption of the at least one electrical component based on the signal.
13 . The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the first component comprises a fuse in electrical communication with the power supply and configured to receive the at least one signal from the power supply and provide an analog signal indicative of current used by the at least one of the one or more electrical components, further comprising an analog- to-digital converter in electrical communication with the fuse and configured to convert the analog signal to a digital signal, and wherein the second component comprises a system-on-a- chip in electrical communication with the analog-to-digital converter and configured to calculate the power consumption of the at least one electrical component based on the signal.
14 . The electronic device of claim 10 , further comprising one or more sensors disposed within the sealed enclosure and configured to sense a physical parameter within the sealed enclosure, wherein the one or more sensors are chosen from at least one temperature sensor, at least one pressure sensor, at least one oxygen sensor, at least one thermal conductivity sensor, at least one electrochemical sensor, at least one optical sensor, at least one relative humidity sensor, and combinations thereof, wherein each sensor is in electrical communication with the circuitry, and wherein the circuity is configured to determine the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on the sensed physical parameter of each sensor.
15 . The electronic device of claim 10 , further comprising a device disposed within the sealed enclosure and configured to actively supply the gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device, wherein the circuity is configured to: compare the determined concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component to a threshold concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component; and actively supply the gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device if the determined concentration is below the threshold concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component.
16 . The electronic device of claim 15 , wherein the device comprises a composition that is configured to generate the gaseous oxidizing agent component, wherein the gaseous oxidizing agent component is configured to be generated to provide the gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space at a mole fraction in the range from 0.1 to less than 20 mole percent based on the total gas in the interior gas space, wherein the composition is configured to actively generate the gaseous oxidizing agent component, and wherein the device is configured to actively cause the composition to generate the gaseous oxidizing agent component.
17 . The electronic device of claim 16 , wherein the device further comprises one or more heating elements in thermal contact with the composition, wherein the one or more heating elements are in electrical communication with the power supply, wherein the circuitry is configured to apply power to the one or more heating elements in an on/off manner according to a predetermined time interval to heat the composition to a temperature that causes the composition to decompose to generate the gaseous oxidizing agent component, and wherein the generating device is configured to be disposed within an environmental control module, wherein the environmental control module includes a gaseous oxidizing agent component permeable membrane to permit the gaseous oxidizing agent component to pass from inside to outside of the environmental control module.
18 . The electronic device of claim 15 , wherein the device comprises a container disposed within the sealed enclosure, wherein the container includes the gaseous oxidizing agent component, wherein the device is configured to allow the gaseous oxidizing agent component to controllably transfer from inside the container to the interior gas space of the housing, wherein transfer of the gaseous oxidizing agent component from inside the container to the interior gas space of the housing is actively controlled.
19 . An integrated circuit comprising circuitry configured to: monitor a signal indicative of power delivered to one or more electrical components disposed within a sealed enclosure, determine a power consumption of at least one of the electrical components based on the monitored signal, determine a concentration of a gaseous oxidizing agent component in the sealed enclosure based at least on the determined power consumption, and control a power supply to supply power to a device to increase the concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in the sealed enclosure if the determined power consumption is below a threshold value.
20 . The integrated circuit of claim 19 , wherein the circuitry comprises a servo processor or a system-on-a-chip.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION The present nonprovisional patent application claims the benefit of commonly owned provisional Application having Ser. No. 63/411,666, filed on Sep. 30, 2022, by Thomas et al., wherein said provisional Application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. SUMMARY The present disclosure includes embodiments of a method of monitoring the concentration of a gaseous oxidizing agent component in an electronic device, wherein the method includes: determining power consumption of one or more electrical components disposed in a sealed enclosure of the electronic device; anddetermining a concentration of the gaseous oxidizing agent component in an interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on at least the determined power consumption and/or actively supplying gaseous oxidizing agent component to the interior gas space of the electronic device if the determined power consumption is below a threshold value. The present disclosure also includes embodiments of n electronic device including: a sealed enclosure having an interior gas space;one or more electrical components disposed in the sealed enclosure;a power supply in electrical communication with the one or more electrical components of the electronic device; andcircuitry in electrical communication with the power supply and configured to: determine power consumption of at least one of the electrical components disposed in the sealed enclosure of the electronic device, and determine a concentration of gaseous oxidizing agent component in the interior gas space of the sealed enclosure based on at least the determined power consumption. The present disclosure also includes embodiments of an integrated circuit including circuitry configured to: measure power consumption of one or more electrical components, andcontrol a power supply to supply power to a device to increase a concentration of gaseous oxidizing agent component in a sealed enclosure based on at least the measured power consumption. While multiple embodiments are disclosed, still other embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which shows and describes illustrative embodiments of the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The detailed description below makes reference to the following figures, wherein the same reference number may be used to identify the similar/same component in multiple figures. The schematic figures are for illustration purposes and are not necessarily drawn to scale. FIG. 1 shows a side cutaway schematic view of a non-limiting embodiment of an electronic device according to the present disclosure; FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a non-limiting embodiment of a data storage device such as a hard disk drive according to the present disclosure; FIG. 3 shows a schematic of a non-limiting embodiment of a power monitoring circuit according to the present disclosure; FIG. 4 shows a graph of empirical data of oxygen concentration versus spindle motor power consumption; FIG. 5 illustrates a non-limiting embodiment of a device having a composition that can be actively controlled to generate a gaseous oxidizing agent component in a hard disk drive; FIG. 6 shows a non-limiting embodiment of a dual chamber container with a permeation layer and micro-valve, which works like a 2-stage regulator; depicts a block diagram of steps of a method, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure; and FIG. 7 shows a graph of power consumption over time. DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present disclosure relates to electronic devices that include a sealed enclosure having an interior gas space, and one or more electrical components disposed in the sealed enclosure. In some embodiments, an electronic device is a data storage device. Non-limiting examples of data storage devices include hard disk drives (HDDs) (internal and/or external), network attached storage (NAS), and the like. Examples of hard disc drives are reported in U.S. Pat. No. 7,478,760 (Beatty et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,695,547 (Smith), wherein the entireties of said patents are incorporated herein by reference. In some embodiments, for desirable performance and reliability characteristics in disk drives an operating atmosphere can include an initial fill of a gas mixture that includes primarily helium gas and a second minor gas fraction of a gaseous oxidizing agent component (oxidizer) for the entire operational life of the drive. The purpose of the primarily helium environment is to reduce gas turbulence induced vibration of the drive's internal components to facilitate track follow capability across disk track widths of 100 nm or less. The second minor gas component, the gaseous oxidizing agent component can oxidize inorganic and/or organic materials and limit their accumulation on