Ceramic support arm for movably positioning transducers

A dimensionally accurate support-arm assembly for movably positioning and supporting a plurality of transducer assemblies, the support-arm assembly comprising a plurality of support arms and a like plurality less one of support-arm spacers, the support arms being arranged in a substantially axially-aligned stacked relationship, each support arm having a transducer-assembly connection end for connection to at least one transducer assembly, each support arm being essentially composed of a ceramic material having a specific stiffness in excess of 5.times.10.sup.6 m and a coefficient of thermal expansion of less than about 7.times.10.sup.-6 m/m/.degree.C., the transducer assembly connection end of each support arm being shaped to define transducer-assembly-connection means integral of the support arm for mating with transducer-assembly-fastener means to connect the at least one transducer assembly to the support arm, a support-arm spacer being located between the connected to each pair of adjacent support arms at ends of the support arms generally opposed to the transducer-assembly-connection ends of the support arms, the support-arm spacer maintaining the pair of support arms in a spaced apart relationship.

A dimensionally accurate support-arm unit for movably positioning and supporting a plurality of transducer assemblies, the support-arm unit comprising a plurality of support-arm members, the support-arm members being arranged in a substantially axially-aligned stacked relationship, each pair of adjacent support-arm members being spaced apart from one another, each support-arm member having a transducer-assembly connection end for connection to at least one transducer assembly, the transducer-assembly connection end of each support-arm member being shaped to define transducer-assembly-connection means integral of the support-arm member for mating with transducer-assembly-fastener means to connect the at least one transducer assembly to the support-arm member, an end of each support-arm member generally opposed to the transducer-assembly-connection end of the support-arm member being connected to and integrally formed with a columnar trunk which extends substantially normally to the support-arm members, the support-arm unit being essentially composed of a ceramic material having a specific stiffness in excess of 5.times.10.sup.6 m and a coefficient of thermal expansion of less than about 7.times.10.sup.-6 m/m/.degree.C.

A dimensionally accurate support arm for movably positioning and supporting at least one read/write-head assembly for reading from and writing to at least one rotating magnetic disc in a magnetic disc drive in a cantilevered fashion, the support arm having a positioning-actuator connection end for connection to a positioning actuator and a read/write-head assembly connection end generally opposed to the positioning-actuator connection end for connection to at least one read/write-head assembly, the support arm being essentially composed of a ceramic material having a specific stiffness in excess of about 7.5.times.10.sup.6 m and a coefficient of thermal expansion of less than about 7.times.10.sup.-6 m/m/.degree.C., the read/write-head assembly connection end of the support arm being shaped to define read/write-head assembly connection means integral of the support arm for mating with read/write-head assembly-fastener means to connect the at least one read/write-head assembly to the support arm, the positioning actuator connection end of the support arm being shaped to define positioning-actuator-connection means integral of the support arm, for mating with positioning-actuator-fastener means to connect the support arm to the positioning actuator.