International Business Machines Corporation

Christopher Arcona

Alain M Desouches

Mark Anthony Church

George M Moorefield, Ii

Michael Zung

Jeffrey Paul Gunder

Robert Owen Barr

Douglas Jeffery Lucken

A method and apparatus for controlling the amount of row distortion before and dynamically during the lapping process used to manufacture sliders for magnetic storage devices. A wafer quadrant of slider rows is bonded to an extender tool held in a carrier assembly and an actuator is used to laterally apply force to the extender tool such that it changes the profile of the wafer quadrant, and thus the foremost slider row. Multiple arms may be defined in the extender tool, permitting independent engagement with and application of the lateral force by the actuator. Bending moments in each arm are then efficiently and controllably transferred into a beam in the extender tool which is proximate to the point where the wafer quadrant is bonded.

Bow compensated lapping

A method and system is disclosed for lapping row edges of a substrate work piece with a flat lapping element. The substrate work piece comprises a section of wafer having parallel aligned multiple row edges to be individually lapped. The wafer has different bow characteristics imparted to different substrate work piece. The bow characteristic of the substrate work piece to be lapped is determined, load points are selected on the work piece which will counteract the bow characteristic, and a pusher with push pads located at the selected load points pushes the work piece at those load points so that the pushing flexes the substrate work piece to counteract the bow characteristic to lap the row edge. Upon completion of the lapping step, the row having the lapped row edge is sliced from the work piece to form a new row edge parallel to the lapped row edge, and, repeating the lapping process, the work piece is pushed by the push pads at the same selected load points, whereby, as the substrate is shortened, making said bow characteristic more pronounced, the pushing at the selected load points provides greater flex of the work piece to counteract the more pronounced bow.

Lapping method and system for compensating for substrate bow

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Campbell, CA, United States of America

Christopher Arcona