Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Japan, Ltd.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

Yukihiro Isono

Masayasu Fujisawa

Noriyuki Saiki

Akio Takakura

Yoshiharu Waki

Hiroshi Kikuchi

Hideaki Tanaka

Makoto Saito

Tatsushi Yoshida

Kanji Kawakami

Yuhsuke Matsumoto

Kenji Furusawa

Shigeru Tadokoro

Hirotsugu Fukuoka

Kenya Ohashi

Hideo Yamakura

Makoto Aihara

Takateru Seki

Tetsuya Matsusaki

Sunao Yonekawa

Kazuyoshi Adachi

Eiji Nakanishi

Mitsuo Suda

Shigeo Aikawa

Takahiro Kato

Masao Matsushita

Masato Yumoto

Kouji Takeshita

Embodiments of the invention provide a head gimbal assembly (HGA) provided with a solder ball connecting structure suitable for the re-utilization of a suspension assembly. In one embodiment, the HGA includes lead wires provided at front ends thereof with lead pads and also includes slider pads capable of being connected to the lead pads by solder ball bonding with the use of solder balls. Respective grooves formed in the surfaces of the slider pads inhibit the solder balls from rotating and moving over the surfaces of the slider pads and the lead pads before the radiation of a laser beam.

Head gimbal assembly provided with solder ball connecting structure allowing re-utilization of suspension

In order to realize a shape of an air bearing surface of a magnetic head slider which is capable of coping with a lowering of flying height and which has high reliability, at the time of polishing the air bearing surface of the magnetic head slider by bringing the air bearing surface and the surface of a polishing machine into contact with each other, machining is conducted in the condition where the stiffness acting between both the members is enhanced, and the standard deviation of the flatness of the air bearing surface machined and the standard deviation of the recess amount between the air bearing surface and a magnetic element are controlled. Thus, it is possible to efficiently manufacture a magnetic head slider which enables driving at a low flying height.

Magnetic head slider and method of manufacturing the same

Protrusion of head elements to an air bearing surface is effectively reduced and their contact with a recording medium is thereby prevented by forming a level gap (concave) of about 3 nm in a multilayered protective film on the air bearing surface in a part matching an inductive write thin film head in a recording/reproducing separated type magnetic head and thereby offsetting protrusion of the head elements to the air bearing surface due to thermal deformation of the heads.

Recording/reproducing separated magnetic head with concave portion formed in air bearing protective film

The present invention forms a conductor that is in electrically conductive contact, through an inside metal layer, with the magnetic thin film of the recording magnetic pole of a thin film magnetic head, and is also exposed to the outside. The equilibrium electrode potential of the conductor in an aqueous solution is set higher than that of the magnetic thin film, and its surface area is larger than the cross-sectional area of the magnetic thin film on the air bearing surface facing the magnetic recording medium. This makes it possible to retard corrosion of the recording magnetic thin film in the process of manufacturing thin film magnetic heads, whereby depletion of the magnetic thin film due to corrosion can be prevented, resulting in improved recording and reproducing qualities.

Thin film magnetic head preventing corrosion and thin film magnetic head slider, and methods of producing the same

A thin-film magnetic head in which the end face of a magnetic film protrudes beyond a substrate within the air bearing surface of the magnetic head. The magnetic film being made of a material containing a metallic element which is lap polished with abrasive grains containing the hydroxide of the metallic element. Because the air bearing surface is constructed according to the above procedure, the bit length of a magnetic disk can be decreased to ensure a higher record density.

Thin film magnetic head with air bearing end face of magnetic film protruding beyond air bearing end face of substrate

A lower magnetic film, a magnetic gap layer, a conductor coil, an insulating layer for electrically insulating the conductor coil, an upper magnetic film and a protective film are laminated on a substrate. Formation data of a lamination step are collected. An optimum value of a magnetic gap depth G of the magnetic gap layer is calculated on the basis of the formation data. The magnetic gap depth is machined to the optimum value on the basis of the optimum value so calculated.

Method for producing thin film magnetic head

This invention provides a lap capable of reducing the pole recession produced between the substrate and the magnetic film when the air-bearing surface of a thin-film magnetic head is lapped, a lapping liquor used for such lapping, and a thin-film magnetic head having its air-bearing surface lapped by using them. Lapping is carried out by using a lap made of a material having both a phase of tin and a phase of brass with a greater rigidity in supporting the abrasive grains than tin, and a lapping liquor prepared by mixing an anionic surfactant (15) and an ampholytic surfactant (16). According to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the pole recession in the thin-film magnetic heads and to accordingly shorten the recording bit length of the magnetic discs.

Lap and lapping liquor

DC bias currents are applied to a conducting wire of a thin film magnetic head to be inspected. When the DC bias currents (I.sub.0, I.sub.1, I.sub.2) are supplied to the conducting wire, the impedances (Z.sub.0, Z.sub.1, Z.sub.2) corresponding to the DC bias currents are measured. When a ratio (.vertline.Z.sub.1 -Z.sub.0 .vertline./.vertline.Z.sub.2 -Z.sub.0 .vertline.) corresponding to an overwrite characteristic (OW) reaches to a predetermined value by lapping tip portions of an upper magnetic layer and a lower magnetic layer of the magnetic head, the lapping process of the magnetic head is finished.

Method for making a thin film magnetic head

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Hadano, Japan

Yukihiro Isono