Western Digital (fremont), Inc.

Western Digital Corporation

Nhk Spring Co., Ltd.

Read Rite Corporation

Edmund Bruno Fanslau, Jr

Muhammad A Hawwa

Brian Scott Thornton

Kenneth Frederick Young

Yimin Niu

Arshad Ahmed Alfoqaha

Weijin Li

Mark Edward Re

A gimbal assembly of a single or dual stage actuator is provided with gold at a tongue/dimple interface where a dimple of a supporting loadbeam contacts a tongue on the gimbal assembly. Using gold at the tongue/dimple interface greatly reduces the amount of wear particles formed during assembly and operation of the microactuator. The tongue may include a gold coating on the tongue at the tongue/dimple interface, or the tongue may have a hole etched in a stainless steel layer at the tongue/dimple interface to expose a gold layer disposed below the stainless steel layer. The tongue portion of the tongue/dimple interface may also be formed from a gold-coated copper pad with a polymer coating over the gold.

Gimbal assembly with a gold tongue/dimple interface and methods of making the same

A head gimbal assembly includes a slider, a flexure, and a plurality of solder receptacles. The slider has an air-bearing surface and a metallized backside opposite the air bearing surface. The flexure includes a flexure tongue layer at least partially formed of stainless steel. The flexure further includes at least one additional layer over the flexure tongue layer. The plurality of solder receptacles extend through the at least one additional layer to the flexure tongue layer. Solder fills at least one of the solder receptacles and contacts the stainless steel of the flexure tongue layer.

Flexure design and assembly process for attachment of slider using solder and laser reflow

A head gimbal assembly having a suspension and a read/write head is provided. The read write head is attached to a flexure tongue of the suspension. Heating elements on arms of the suspension, set on either side of the suspension tongue, are used to alter flight characteristics of the read/write read such as pitch and roll. Due to differences in the coefficients of thermal expansion of the materials that comprise the arms, the arms bend when heated. Varying the heat output of the heating elements changes the temperatures of the arms, which changes the degree to which the arms are bent. The heating elements can be portions of traces in a trace layer. Control circuitry is provided to control the heating of the heating elements to maintain desired values of the flight characteristics.

Heated gimbal for magnetic head to disk clearance adjustment

A slider/suspension design and assembly method include securing a slider to a suspension assembly for use in a magnetic disk drive data recording device. To this end, solder bumps are applied to a metalized backside surface of the slider, and are patterned and flown within a plurality of receptacles to form a rigid mechanical connection between the slider to the flexure, while also enabling the slider-suspension assembly to be separated without damage during the process. The slider/suspension assembly is initiated by forming a plurality of slider bars on a wafer, in such a manner that the trailing edge surfaces of the sliders form a front side of the wafer. A plurality of thin film read/write elements and a plurality of electrical contact pads are formed on the wafer front side. Slider bars are then diced from the wafer, and the slider backsides are metalized on the slider bars. A pattern of solder bumps is applied onto the metalized backsides of the slider bars, and the slider bars are then sliced to form individual sliders that are secured to corresponding flexures.

A rotary microactuator-based head-gimbal assembly design controls the unwanted deflection of a flexure in a data storage device and eliminates hinge deformation. The head-gimbal assembly maintains the co-planarity of the hinged islands in the microactuator under the applied load acting on the flexure and two associated hinged islands. The dimple post is placed at the dimple loading region of the flexure tongue and has the same height as adhesive dams on paddles secured to the hinged islands. The dimple post is formed by branching one of the existing conductive traces covered by a photoresist layer to the dimple loading region on flexure tongue. In an alternative embodiment, the dimple post is secured to the dimple loading region of the flexure tongue by means of adhesives with a variety of viscosity and elastic moduli.

Dimple pivot post for a rotary co-located microactuator

A technique for reducing pole tip protrusion ('PTP') in a magnetic write head and giant magnetoresistive ('GMR') stripe temperature in an associated read head structure utilizing one or more internal diffuser regions. In a representative embodiment disclosed, this may be effectuated through the appropriate placement of a relatively highly conductive material diffuser region (e.g. gold (Au) or copper (Cu)) above the poles, between the first pole and the coil and/or through the first pole, second and first shields and undercoat layer to the substrate in order to conduct heat away from the write head poles, insulating layers (e.g. photoresist) and shields.

Technique for reducing pole tip protrusion in a magnetic write head and GMR stripe temperature in an associated read head structure utilizing one or more internal diffuser regions

An enchance recording head design provides conduction and mechanical restraint control in order to minimize the pole tip protrusion and the head temperature resulting from the thermal heating of the magnetic recording head during operation. In one embodiment, the recording head includes a hybrid diffuser formed within an insulation layer, at a predetermined distance from the head write section. The hybrid diffuser is comprised of a thermal conduction layer with high thermal conductivity, such as gold or copper, and a mechanical restraint layer having near zero CTE, such as a 60-80% face-centered-cubic NiFe (Invar) material. The hybrid diffuser is recessed from the ABS to prevent the delamination of the hybrid diffuser due to the otherwise displacement incompatibility between the inner insulating layer and the hybrid diffuser at the ABS.

Hybrid diffuser for minimizing thermal pole tip protrusion and reader sensor temperature

A microactuator comprised of a piezoelectric motor mounted on a flexure tongue with offsetting hinges, to perform a fine positioning of the magnetic read/write head. The substantial gain in the frequency response greatly improves the performance and accuracy of the track-follow control for fine positioning. The simplicity of the enhanced microactuator design results in a manufacturing efficiency that enables a high-volume, low-cost production.

Microactuator with offsetting hinges and method for high-resolution positioning of magnetic read/write head

A head gimbal assembly for a disk drive. The head gimbal assembly includes a load beam defining a longitudinal axis. The head gimbal assembly further includes a flexure with a portion of said flexure being attached to said load beam. The head gimbal assembly further includes a slider including a read/write head. The head gimbal assembly further includes a collocated microactuator which connects between said flexure and said slider for providing pure or nearly pure lateral movement to said slider in a plane of motion that includes the longitudinal axis. The collocated microactuator is a shear mode piezoelectric motor and disposed between the slider and the load beam along an axis disposed orthogonal to the longitudinal axis.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Edmund Bruno Fanslau, Jr