Micro-winchester disk drive having on-board segmented cache memory

Claim 1

A disk drive including a head and disk assembly means having a rotating data storage disk for storing blocks of data, voice coil actuator means for positioning at least one data transducer head means in order to store and retrieve said blocks of data to and from the disk, and spindle motor means for rotating the disk; the drive further comprising a circuit board attached to the head and disk assembly means and including: head positioner servo means for providing control signals to said voice coil actuator means, read and write electronic channel means for formatting said blocks from digital to analog signal format, sequencing means for controlling sequencing of said blocks to and from the disk, cache buffer memory means for temporarily storing said blocks of data, memory controller means for addressing said cache buffer memory means, digital interface means for connecting a digital signal bus carrying data and control values to and from a host computing system, and single embedded microcontroller means for directly controlling said read and write electronic channel means, said sequencing means, said memory controller means, said interface means, and said head positioner servo means, said cache buffer memory means being arranged as a plurality of segments of memory, said memory controller means for defining a plurality of channels including a host data channel, and a disk and microcontroller data channel, and including multiplexing means for switching cache memory segment addresses between predetermined segments in response to a particular one of said channels being presently active such that data can be transferred over said host channel to a predetermined host segment while data is being transferred over said drive channel on another predetermined drive segment.