US 6,333,841 B1Granted

Thin film magnetic head and method of manufacturing the same

AssigneeTDK Corporation

InventorYoshitaka Sasaki

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Abstract

It is an object of the invention to enable fine processing of not only a pole tip but a top pole layer to submicron measurement among the top pole which is divided into two. In the invention, the top pole is divided to the pole tip and the top pole layer, and a pole tip is formed on the flat surface of a bottom pole with a write gap layer in between. Through this, the pole tip which controls a recording track width is processed to submicron measurement. An insulating layer is formed in a region adjacent to the pole tip. A first layer of thin film coil is formed in a region where the insulating layer is formed. The thin film coil is covered by the insulating layer whose surface is flattened. As a result, difference in height of an apex area including a thin film coil becomes less for the size of (first layer of) thin film coil comparing to that of the related art. Accordingly, an effect of difference in height of the apex area is decreased when the top pole layer is formed by photolithography. As a result, micronizing the top pole layer to submicron measurement becomes possible.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A thin film magnetic head having at least two magnetic layers including at least a first magnetic pole and a second magnetic pole being magnetically coupled to each other while part of sides facing a recording medium face each other with a write gap layer in between, and having one or more layers of thin film coil for generating magnetic flux, comprising:

a first magnetic layer including the first magnetic pole;
a pole tip for composing the second magnetic pole;
a first insulating layer formed extendedly at least from the surfaces of the pole tip and the write gap layer which are opposite of sides facing the recording medium to one of the surface of the first magnetic layer;
at least one layer of the thin film coil with at least part of its film-thickness direction being formed in a region where the first insulating layer is formed;
a second insulating layer formed at least between turns of the thin film coil;
a second magnetic layer formed to cover at least part of the thin film coil while being connected to at least part of the surface of the pole tip which is opposite of the neighboring surface of the write gap layer;
and
wherein the write gap layer is sandwiched at least in part between the first magnetic layer and the first insulating layer.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.