An evolutionary improvement to the standard ferrite
head design was the invention of Metal-In-Gap heads. These heads are essentially of
the same design as ferrite core heads, but add a special metallic alloy in the head. This
change greatly increases its magnetization capabilities, allowing MIG heads to be used
with higher density media, increasing capacity. While an improvement over ferrite designs,
MIG heads themselves have been supplanted by thin film heads and magnetoresistive
technologies. They are usually found in PC hard disks of about 50 MB to 100 MB.
Note: The word
"gap" in the name of this technology refers to the gap between the poles of the
magnet used in the core of the read/write head, not the gap
between the head and the platter.
Next: Thin Film (TF) Heads
