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:
Aug. 23, 2005
Filed:
Sep. 30, 2002
Jinqiu Zhang, Fremont, CA (US);
Jing Zhang, San Jose, CA (US);
Yiming Huai, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Lifan Chen, Fremont, CA (US);
Jinqiu Zhang, Fremont, CA (US);
Jing Zhang, San Jose, CA (US);
Yiming Huai, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Lifan Chen, Fremont, CA (US);
Western Digital (Fremont), Inc., Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
Magnetoresistive (MR) sensors are disclosed that have leads that overlap a MR structure and distribute current to and from the MR structure so that the current is not concentrated in small portions of the leads, alleviating the problems mentioned above. For example, the leads can be formed of a body-centered cubic (bcc) form of tantalum, combined with gold or other highly conductive materials. For the situation in which a thicker bcc tantalum layer covers a highly conductive gold layer, the tantalum layer protects the gold layer during MR structure etching, so that the leads can have broad layers of electrically conductive material for connection to MR structures. The broad leads also conduct heat better than the read gap material that they replace, further reducing the temperature at the connection between the leads and the MR structure.