Quantum Peripherals Colorado, Inc.

Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics, Industries, Ltd.

Other

Quantum Corporation

Avago Technologies Ecbu IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Michael J Jennison

Ray Myron Parkhurst

Young Keun Kim

Philip Gene Nikkel

Wei Pan

John Shi Sun Wei

A component having an airdome enclosure that protects the component from its external environment. An airdome enclosure according to the present techniques avoids the high costs of employing special materials and/or specialized process steps in the manufacture of a component. An electronic component according to the present techniques includes a set of substructures formed on a substrate and an airdome enclosure over the substructures that protects the substructures and that hinders the formation of parasitic capacitances among the substructures.

Airdome enclosure for components

A top surface imaging technique for top pole tip width control in a magnetoresistive (&ldquo;MR&rdquo;) or giant magnetoresistive (&ldquo;GMR&rdquo;) read/write head is disclosed in which a multi-layer structure is employed to define the thick photoresist during processing resulting in much improved dimensional control. To this end, a relatively thin upper photoresist layer is patterned with much improved resolution, an intermediate metal or ceramic layer is then defined utilizing the upper photoresist layer as a reactive ion etching (&ldquo;RIE&rdquo;) mask, with the intermediate layer then being used as an etching mask to define the bottom-most thick photoresist layer in a second RIE process. As a consequence, a much improved sub-micron pole tip width along with a high aspect ratio and vertical profile is provided together with much improved critical dimension control.

Top surface imaging technique for top pole tip width control in magnetoresistive read/write head processing

A top surface imaging technique for top pole tip width control in a magnetoresistive ('MR') or giant magnetoresistive ('GMR') read/write head is disclosed in which a multi-layer structure is employed to define the thick photoresist during processing resulting in much improved dimensional control. To this end, a relatively thin upper photoresist layer is patterned with much improved resolution, an intermediate metal or ceramic layer is then defined utilizing the upper photoresist layer as a reactive ion etching ('RIE') mask, with the intermediate layer then being used as an etching mask to define the bottom-most thick photoresist layer in a second RIE process. As a consequence, a much improved sub-micron pole tip width along with a high aspect ratio and vertical profile is provided together with much improved critical dimension control.

Top surface imaging technique for top pole tip width control in

A process for making a magnetic head including the steps of forming a first pole piece comprising magnetic material and depositing a gap-forming layer comprising nonmagnetic material over the first pole piece. A first patterned layer of uncrosslinked polymer is formed on the gap-forming layer. The first patterned layer is cured by electron irradiation at a temperature less than about 175 C. to crosslink the polymer. A conductive coil is formed on the cured first patterned layer and a second patterned layer of uncrosslinked polymer is formed over the conductive coil. The second patterned layer is cured by electron irradiation at a temperature less than about 175 C. to crosslink the polymer. A second pole piece layer of magnetic material is formed to complete the magnetic head.

Giant magnetoresistive head with electron cured insulator

Insulator cure process for giant magnetoresistive heads

A method for forming a re-entrant photoresist lift-off profile for thin film device processing of particular utility in conjunction with self-aligned sputtered films, such as permanent magnet ('PM') films, for use in magnetoresistive ('MR') read heads as well as a device made thereby. Photoresist is patterned in a conventional manner upon the thin film layers overlying a suitable substrate and the photoresist is then exposed to a suitable developer resulting in photoresist regions having substantially vertical sidewalls. An electron beam, or other suitable energy source, is then utilized to cross-link (or render relatively insoluble) the upper portion of the positive tone resist image by accelerating a sufficient dose of electrons into the photoresist to a well controlled depth. A second electron beam is then distributed throughout the entire photoresist thickness to render the lower portion of it relatively more soluble in a developer. The resist is then developed for a predetermined time to achieve an undercut in the lower portion of the photoresist.

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Broomfield, CO, United States of America

Michael J Jennison