Digital servo demodulation in a digital read channel

A technique is described which implements high-performance servo burst amplitude demodulation using the 6-bit analog-to-digital converter in a digital read channel. The use of digital circuits reduces the size of the channel chip as well as reducing the design time and variability compared to analog circuits. The performance of the digital area detect burst demodulator is compared to standard analog techniques. Simulation results show digital area detect performance better than peak detect and very close to optimal for a practical burst waveform.