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:
Nov. 27, 2012
Filed:
Jul. 13, 2009
Xilin Peng, Bloomington, MN (US);
Stacey C. Wakeham, Bloomington, MN (US);
Yifan Zhang, Eden Prairie, MN (US);
Zhongyan Wang, San Ramon, CA (US);
Konstantin R. Nikolaev, Edina, MN (US);
Mark Henry Ostrowski, Lakeville, MN (US);
Yonghua Chen, Edina, MN (US);
Juren Ding, Eden Prairie, MN (US);
Xilin Peng, Bloomington, MN (US);
Stacey C. Wakeham, Bloomington, MN (US);
Yifan Zhang, Eden Prairie, MN (US);
Zhongyan Wang, San Ramon, CA (US);
Konstantin R. Nikolaev, Edina, MN (US);
Mark Henry Ostrowski, Lakeville, MN (US);
Yonghua Chen, Edina, MN (US);
Juren Ding, Eden Prairie, MN (US);
Seagate Technology LLC, Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A method of fabricating a magnetic device is described. A mask removing layer is formed on a layered sensing stack and a hard mask layer is formed on the mask removing layer. A first reactive ion etch is performed with a non-oxygen-based chemistry to define the hard mask layer using an imaged layer formed on the hard mask layer as a mask. A second reactive ion etch is performed with an oxygen-based chemistry to define the mask removing stop layer using the defined hard mask layer as a mask. A third reactive ion etch is performed to define the layered sensing stack using the hard mask layer as a mask. The third reactive ion etch includes an etching chemistry that performs at a lower etching rate on the hard mask layer than on the layered sensing stack.