Programmable write driver circuit for writing information to a magnetic storage media

The present invention provides a write driver circuit for use in a magnetic read/write system for writing information to a magnetic storage medium. In accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention, the write driver circuit comprises a variable common mode circuit component for enabling the common mode output voltage of the write driver circuit to be varied and/or set to a preselected value. In accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention, the write driver circuit comprises a variable damping resistance circuit component for enabling the damping resistance of the write driver circuit to be varied and/or set to a preselected value in order to optimize write current rise time and overshoot. The write driver circuit may comprise both the variable common mode circuit component and the variable damping resistance component to enable both the common mode output voltage and the damping resistance to be varied and set to preselected values in order to optimize the performance of the write driver circuit. In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a relatively high-power write driver circuit is fabricated using a fabrication process normally used for fabricating relatively low-power write driver circuits. in accordance with this embodiment, the current sources of the write driver circuit are each comprised of a plurality of transistors connected in series in cascode configurations such that the voltage drop across any one of the transistors of the cascode configurations is limited to meet the requirements. of the fabrication process.