
SMSC DS – FDC37N958FR
Page 75
Rev. 09/01/99
The internal register, PCN, will overflow as the
cylinder number crosses track 255 and will
contain 39 (D). The resulting PCN value is thus
(RCN + PCN) mod 256. Functionally, the FDC
starts counting from 0 again as the track number
goes above 255 (D). It is the user's responsibility
to compensate FDC functions (precompensation
track number) when accessing tracks greater than
255. The FDC does not keep track that it is
working in an "extended track area" (greater than
255). Any command issued will use the current
PCN value except for the Recalibrate command,
which only looks for the TRACK0 signal.
Recalibrate will return an error if the head is
farther than 79 due to its limitation of issuing a
maximum of 80 step pulses. The user simply
needs to issue a second Recalibrate command.
The Seek command and implied seeks will
function correctly within the 44 (D) track (299-255)
area of the "extended track area". It is the user's
responsibility not to issue a new track position that
will exceed the maximum track that is present in
the extended area.
To return to the standard floppy range (0-255) of
tracks, a Relative Seek should be issued to cross
the track 255 boundary.
A Relative Seek can be used instead of the
normal Seek, but the host is required to calculate
the difference between the current head location
and the new (target) head location. This may
require the host to issue a Read ID command to
ensure that the head is physically on the track that
software assumes it to be. Different FDC
commands will return different cylinder results
which may be difficult to keep track of with
software without the Read ID command.
Perpendicular Mode
The Perpendicular Mode command should be
issued prior to executing Read/Write/Format
commands that access a disk drive with
perpendicular recording capability. With this
command, the length of the Gap2 field and VCO
enable timing can be altered to accommodate the
unique requirements of these drives. Table 36
describes the effects of the WGATE and GAP bits
for the Perpendicular Mode command. Upon a
reset, the FDC will default to the conventional
mode (WGATE = 0, GAP = 0).
Selection of the 500 Kbps and 1 Mbps
perpendicular modes is independent of the actual
data rate selected in the Data Rate Select
Register. The user must ensure that these two
data rates remain consistent.
The Gap2 and VCO timing requirements for
perpendicular recording type drives are dictated
by the design of the read/write head. In the
design of this head, a pre-erase head precedes
the normal read/write head by a distance of 200
micrometers. This works out to about 38 bytes at
a 1 Mbps recording density. Whenever the write
head is enabled by the Write Gate signal, the pre-
erase head is also activated at the same time.
Thus, when the write head is initially turned on,
flux transitions recorded on the media for the first
38 bytes will not be preconditioned with the pre-
erase head since it has not yet been activated.
To accommodate this head activation and
deactivation time, the Gap2 field is expanded to a
length of 41 bytes. The format field illustrates
the change in the Gap2 field size for the
perpendicular format.
On the read back by the FDC, the controller must
begin synchronization at the beginning of the sync
field. For the conventional mode, the internal PLL
VCO is enabled (VCOEN) approximately 24 bytes
from the start of the Gap2 field. But, when the
controller operates in the 1 Mbps perpendicular
mode (WGATE = 1, GAP = 1), VCOEN goes
active after 43 bytes to accommodate the
increased Gap2 field size. For both cases, and
approximate two-byte cushion is maintained from
the beginning of the sync field for the purposes of
avoiding write splices in the presence of motor
speed variation.
For the Write Data case, the FDC activates Write
Gate at the beginning of the sync field under the
conventional mode. The controller then writes a
new sync field, data address mark, data field, and
CRC. With the pre-erase head of the
perpendicular drive, the write head must be
activated in the Gap2 field to insure a proper write
of the new sync field. For the 1 Mbps
perpendicular mode (WGATE = 1, GAP = 1), 38
bytes will be written in the Gap2 space. Since the