Method of manufacturing a merged MR head

A method of manufacturing a merged MR head formed by sequentially stacking a lower shield, a lower shield gap, a magnetoresistive (MR) element, an upper shield gap, a lower magnetic pole/upper shield, a recording gap layer, a coil, a coil insulating layer, and an upper magnetic pole on a side surface of a trailing edge of a floating slider having an air bearing surface, the method comprising the steps of:

• forming a pedestal on a portion of said lower magnetic pole/upper shield that includes said air bearing surface;
• forming said recording gap layer on said lower magnetic pole/upper shield and said pedestal;
• forming said upper magnetic pole, having a width smaller than that of said pedestal by 0.1 .mu.m to 2.0 .mu.m, on said recording gap layer on said pedestal;
• and wherein said pedestal has a height not less than twice a thickness of said recording gap layer to decrease widening of the fringe magnetic field during recording
• etching and notching said recording gap layer and said pedestal by using said upper magnetic pole as a mask, thereby forming a sidewall of said pedestal to be on the same plane where a sidewall of said upper magnetic pole is present.