Tripad air bearing magnetic head slider
AssigneeRead-Rite Corporation
InventorsChak M. Leung, Carroll S. Gooden, Edgar M. Williams
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tripad air bearing slider useful in a disk drive is designed with two outer pads that extend from two or more tapered sections at the leading edge of the slider towards the trailing edge. The pads are configured and angled so that a desired lift force is obtained that acts in opposition to a force provided by a spring loaded flexure or load beam. The angles that define the shape of the three pads are formed by simple mechanical cutting, using a diamond cutting wheel, for example, or alternatively by ion milling or reactive ion etching.
Claims27
A thin film magnetic head assembly for contact or pseudo-contact recording with a magnetic disk comprising:
- a head slider having an air bearing surface and leading and trailing edges with substantially parallel first and second sides extending from said leading edge to said trailing edge, said slider having a central longitudinal axis between said edges;
- first, second and third pads formed on said air bearing surface of said slider, said first and second pads being disposed towards the leading edge of said slider at the sides of said slider and extending only partially toward the trailing edge and beyond the center of the length of the slider measured from said leading edge towards said trailing edge, said third pad being disposed at the rear center of said slider at the trailing edge, said third pad extending from said trailing edge towards said leading edge of said slider about 5% to 20% of the total length of said slider, the length of said third pad along said central axis being less than the distance from the trailing edges of said first and second pads to the trailing edge of said slider, said first and second pads being substantially rectangular and having trailing ends spaced from said trailing edge of said slider;
- said third pad being substantially wedge shaped and having leading and trailing ends substantially parallel to said trailing ends of said first and second pad;
- rectangular tapers at the sides of said slider between said leading edge and said first and second pads;
- whereby said slider maintains a relatively high pitch relative to said magnetic disk.
A magnetic head air bearing slider useful for transducing action with a rotating magnetic storage disk, said slider having substantially parallel sides and leading and trailing ends extending laterally between said sides and having a longitudinal central axis extending between said leading and trailing ends parallel to said sides comprising:
- first, second and third pads, said first and second pads being disposed at opposing sides of said slider, all of said three pads having angled sides;
- first and second tapered sections at the leading end of said slider, said sections being adjacent respectively to said first and second pads, said tapered sections and said first and second pads defining a central recess extending from said leading end towards said third pad;
- said first and second pads extending from said tapered sections only partially towards said trailing end so as to be spaced from said trailing end, said first and second pads extending beyond the midpoint between said leading and trailing ends;
- said third pad extending from said trailing end of said slider towards said leading end about 5% to 20% of the total length of said slider, said third pad being centered substantially relative to said longitudinal central axis, said third pad having a width less than the width of said slider and being spaced from said sides of said slider, and recessed areas extending laterally from the outermost edges of said third pad, whereby said slider is in contact or pseudocontact with said rotating disk during transducing operation, and said slider maintains a relatively high pitch relative to said magnetic disk.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.