Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

International Business Machines Corporation

Yasuhiro Mita

Tatsumi Tsuchiya

Takuya Satoh

Hiroyasu Tsuchida

Yoshio Uematsu

Yuhsuke Matsumoto

Takaaki Murokawa

Naoki Fujii

Tatsushi Yoshida

Surya Narayan Pattanaik

Tatsuya Tanaka

Hiromi Ishikawa Ishikawa

Tadaaki Tomiyama

Hiroyoshi Yokome

Kenji Itoh

Takao Kidachi

Seiji Nakagawa

Kohichiroh Naka

Tatsumi Tuchiya

Masaaki Nanba

Lan Shi

Junichi Hosaka

Katsuo Tsubaki

Embodiments of the invention relate to techniques to remove a defective head gimbal assembly (HGA) from a head stack assembly and replace the defective HGA with a good one without allowing any good HGAs to be damaged. In one embodiment, a volatile alcohol solvent is moved by gravity from a holder included in a reworking tool provided for a reworking jig to a shearing edge of a cartridge type edge mounted in the holder. The alcohol solvent is thereby deposited on the shearing edge in a drop-like shape through surface tension. The cartridge type edge is made to slide on a surface of an actuator arm and is inserted in a gap between contacting surfaces of a mount plate and the actuator arm. This assigns the drop-like alcohol solvent a function as a lubricant. Possible vibration can therefore be prevented from being transmitted through a carriage to other HGAs.

Soaked de-swage method for rebuilding head stack assembly

An integrated lead suspension includes a solder ball that is placed between a lead wiring pad provided on a flexure of the suspension, and a bonding pad provided on a slider of a head gimbal section. The lead wiring pad and bonding pad are soldered by melting the solder ball. As a result, there is provided a recessed section into which a solder ball is placed by way of surface raised sections, using gravitational force, in the vicinity of the center line of the surface of the lead wiring pad. In this way the position of the solder ball is not displaced from the center line when a bonding pad and lead wiring pad are connected by means of a solder ball.

Method of constructing an integrated lead suspension

Integrated lead suspension and method of construction

A head gimbal assembly, which is a component of a hard disk drive, has a bending portion that has elasticity and is bent at a predetermined angle under an unloaded condition, and a slider is bonded to a holding portion thereof by mounting the head gimbal assembly on a bonding jig in a state in which the bending portion is stretched. When the head gimbal assembly is separated from the bonding jig after bonding, the bending portion is not restored freely, so that the head gimbal assembly is caught by the bonding jig during the separating process and a locked state is sometimes established.

Apparatus and method for separating head gimbal assembly from bonding jig

An apparatus joins bonding pads of a slider and lead pads of lead wires in a head gimbals assembly to improve efficiency, downsizing, and maintenance of solder-ball disposing devices, and solder-ball reflow devices for reflowing solder balls. The solder-ball disposing apparatus discharges solder balls from solder-ball discharging holes of a solder-ball feeder unit which are evacuated by a suction pad. An environmental space and an inert-gas supply portion for forming inactive atmosphere are formed on a table to eliminate an inert-gas supply unit from an optical unit, so that converged laser beams are directly radiated onto the solder balls.

Solder ball disposing apparatus, solder ball reflow apparatus, and solder ball bonding apparatus

A head gimbal assembly is provided with a slider that flies above the surface of a disk, and a head for reading/writing data from/onto the surface of the disk. One or more conductive wires are connected to the head and are used to transmit data. A load beam supports the wire(s) thereon and holds the head/slider near a front end of the load beam. Each wire forms a wire loop between the head connecting point edge and the wire fixing point. A predetermined portion of each wire loop is pressed from above on the surface of the load beam, and then pushed toward the head connecting point edge, thereby plastically deforming a section between the head connecting point edge and the predetermined portion of the wire loop.

Apparatus and method for configuring and electrically interconnecting the elements of a head gimbal assembly in a disk drive

A capillary tube for a solder ball connection device connects a first connection surface of a pad to a second connection surface of a pad with a solder ball. The first connection surface is formed at a slider held by a slider holder in a disk unit. The second connection surface is formed at an end of a lead wired to the slider holder. The capillary tube has a ball regulator with a substantially conic, hollow portion. The solder ball regulator has an opening at its top that opens to the tip of the hollow portion. The center axes of the hollow portion and the opening are common. The solder ball regulator also has a pair of projections along the center axis around the opening, where the projections face each other with the center axis therebetween. The projections regulate the movement of the solder ball. The tip of the hollow portion is tapered when viewed from a line connecting the pair of projections and the extreme tips of the tapered tip portions.

Solder ball connection device and capillary tube thereof

A head support arm of a disk drive device comprises; a front portion supporting a head/slider assembly, a rear portion pivotally mounted on a frame of the disk drive device, a bending portion between the front portion and the rear portion, a plurality of electrically conductive wires covered by a tube, and a first fixing position and a second fixing position symmetrically located on both sides of a center line of the head support arm at positions between the bending portion and the front portion, characterized in that the tube is attached to the head support arm between the bending portion and the rear portion, the plurality of electrically conductive wires extending from a front end of the tube on the side of the front portion of the head support arm extend over the bending portion and are divided into a first group and a second group, the first group of wires is fixed to the second fixing position.

Head support arm having conductive wires of a disk drive device

The present invention provides a new tab structure for a head suspension assembly in a magnetic storage system. In the prior art method of assembly, a harness temporarily holds a wire assembly. The present invention eliminates the need for the harness, thereby reducing the number of parts and steps as well as improving productivity and quality. A flexure of a suspension assembly must be manufactured very precisely. The present invention provides a new tab structure either integral with or separate from the flexure. Wires bridge over to an extension on the tab structure at a predetermined distance from the end of the load beam. Positioning holes, using the extreme flatness of the tab structure, align the wires with the bonding pads of a head. The suspension assembly is subsequently bonded to the head, and the unwanted tab structure is removed to complete the head suspension assembly.

Wired suspension assembly in disk storage device method for assembly

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa-ken, Japan

Yasuhiro Mita