Western Digital (fremont), Inc.

Mathew Gibbons

Yiming Huai

Jing Zhang

Kroum Stanimirov Stoev

Francis H Liu

Marcos Moises Lederman

Bogdan M Simion

Aparna C Vadde

Magnetoresistive (MR) sensors have leads that overlap a MR structure and distribute current to the MR structure so that the current is not concentrated in small portions of the leads. An electrically resistive capping layer can be formed between the leads and the MR structure to distribute the current. The leads can include resistive layers and conductive layers, the resistive layers having a thickness-to-resistivity ratio that is greater than that of each of the conductive layers. The resistive layers may protect the conductive layers during MR structure etching, so that the leads have broad layers of electrically conductive material for connection to MR structures. The broad leads conduct heat better than the read gap material that they replace, further reducing the temperature at the connection between the leads and the MR structure.

Magnetoresistive sensor with overlapping leads having distributed current

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Livermore, CA, United States of America

Mathew Gibbons