Western Digital Corporation

Thaddeus Anthony Raczek

Gregory G Foisy

Apparatus and means for attaching the head-suspension assembly to the actuator arm in a disk drive. A head-suspension assembly in a first fabrication step is permanently fastened to a nut plate, for example, by laser welding. The nut plate is fastened to the suspension assembly on the suspension surface that faces away from the nearby recording disk when the disk drive is fully assembled. Another aspect of this invention is the use of heat-activated thermosetting adhesive. The head-suspension assembly with the affixed nut plate is fastened to an actuator arm with a heat-activated adhesive film. In one embodiment, the adhesive is applied to both sides of a thin plastic film for ease of handling and application. In another embodiment, the adhesive is made electrically conductive to provide an electrically-conductive path between the actuator arm and the head-suspension assembly. In one such embodiment, the plastic film separating the two layers of electrically-conductive adhesive is perforated to allow contact between the two layers of adhesive that forms an electrically-conductive path.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Thaddeus Anthony Raczek