The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 16, 2003
Filed:
Aug. 17, 2001
Headway Technologies, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Spin valve heads with overlaid leads have several advantages over butted contiguous junction designs, including larger signal output and better head stability. However, in any overlaid design there is always present at least one high resistance layer between the GMR layer and the conductive leads. This leads to an effective read width that is greater than the actual physical width. This problem has been overcome by inserting a highly conductive channeling layer between the GMR stack and the conducting lead laminate. This arrangement ensures that, at the intersection between the leads and the GMR stack, virtually all the current moves out of the free layer into the leads thereby providing an effective read width for the device that is very close to the physical read width defined by the spacing between the two leads. A process for manufacturing the device is also described.