International Business Machines Corporation

Hiroo Inoue

Tatsumi Tsuchiya

Tatsushi Yoshida

Hiroshi Matsuda

Surya Narayan Pattanaik

Hiroyasu Tsuchida

Akihiko Aoyagi

David W Albrecht

Keishi Takahashi

Hiromi Ishikawa Ishikawa

Kohji Serizawa

Fujio Harako

Yuhji Kobayashi

Masaaki Nanba

Yurika Shimozawa

The present invention provides a head supporting arm that allows for laser tacking while having a merging lip and limiters for loading/unloading respectively. A head supporting arm according to the present invention includes a load beam, and a flexure connecting the load beam to a slider. The load beam having a dimple for generating a gimbal motion between the flexure and the slider. The slider having a head connected to its one end. The head supporting arm of the present invention further including an exposure opening formed in the load beam. The exposure opening allowing for the exposing of the bonding portion of the flexure that is bonded to the other end of the slider. The exposure opening further providing an opening to extend the limiters formed unitarily with the flexure onto a surface of the load beam that is opposite to the surface on which the flexure is provided. The extended limiters are hooked to the load beam at the opposite surface.

Head supporting arm, Data recording apparatus, with laser beam exposing aperture and limiter

Apertures are formed in the portion of a flexure adjacent to the soldered portions between the bonding pads of the slider and the lead pads of lead end portions. With this, an adhesive agent for bonding the slider to a flexure tongue is moved downward from the apertures so there is no fear that the adhesive agent will contact the lead pads and the bonding pads. This design prevents the protrusion of an adhesive agent from short-circuiting the flexure, and absorbs a warp produced by shrinkage of a soldered portion by decreasing rigidity of the flexure. When both the bonding pad formed on the slider and the lead pad of a lead fixed to the platform of the flexure are disposed and soldered, the quality of the soldered portion is improved by locating the pads as close to each other as possible.

Hard disk drive with slider support structure and head gimbal assembly

A head support assembly for a disk drive is comprised of a head suspension assembly connected to an actuator arm at one end and supporting a head at the other end, wherein a projection is formed on a flexure closely fixed on a thin-plate load beam, said projection projecting toward a disk surface and having a smooth surface. The projection is formed at a region somewhat close to the head supporting end from the hinge portion of the load beam. When shock is applied to the disk drive, bending occurs around the hinge portion of the load beam. During such bending, the projection having a smooth round surface is caused to contact the disk, whereby the disk surface is prevented from being damaged.

Suspension assembly with integral projections having a coating of elastic material

The present invention prevents a head/slider assembly fixed on a flexure of a head suspension assembly from having an undesired pitching motion when an unexpected excess shock is applied to a hard disk device when the head suspension is at the best position of the unload ramp. A disk drive device in accordance with the present invention comprises: a rotating data recording disk; a head suspension assembly containing a front portion and a rear portion, with the front portion being provided with a tab; a device coupled to the rear portion of the head suspension assembly to move the front portion between an inner most position and an outer most position along a radial direction of the rotating data recording disk; a ramp element containing a support surface for engaging with the tab of the front portion of the head suspension assembly when the front portion is moved to the outer most position; and a flexure mounted on said front portion of the head suspension assembly, and having a front portion disposed towards the tab of the head suspension assembly and a rear portion disposed towards the rear portion of the head suspension assembly.

Disk drive device with shock resistance flexure and ramp limited system

Growing community of inventors

Fujisawa, Japan

Hiroo Inoue