Process of eliminating ridges formed during dicing of aerodynamic sliders, and sliders formed thereby

A process of dicing a bar to form a plurality of sliders each having an air bearing surface, the bar containing adjacent slider portions having slider features and a nominal surface between adjacent slider features, the process comprising sequential steps of:

• a) defining a dice lane on the nominal surface, the dice lane having opposite edges defining respective edges of adjacent slider portions
• b) forming a barrier trench in the nominal surface along each dice lane edge, each barrier trench having a predetermined depth into the nominal surface and having a width that extends a predetermined distance into the respective slider portion from the respective dice lane edge to minimize ridges in the air bearing surface of the slider;
• and
• c) cutting away the dice lane with a blade to form an edge surface of a slider along a respective dice lane edge.

A bar formed of slider material comprising:

• a plurality of adjacent slider features having an air bearing surface;
• a nominal surface between adjacent slider features;
• a dice lane on the nominal surface, the dice lane having opposite edges along which the bar may be cut to remove the dice lane and separate the adjacent slider features into separate sliders having edge surfaces defined by respective dice lane edges, and
• a barrier trench in the nominal surface along each edge of the dice lane, the barrier trench extending a predetermined depth into the bar from the nominal surface and a predetermined distance into the respective slider feature from a respective dice lane edge to inhibit formation of ridges in the air bearing surface when a blade cuts the bar to remove the dice lane.

A process of dicing a bar to form a plurality of sliders, the bar containing adjacent slider portions each having a nominal surface and at least one rail extending from the nominal surface and defining an air bearing surface, the nominal surface extending between rails of adjacent slider portions, the process comprising sequential steps of:

• a) defining a dice lane on the nominal surface, the dice lane having opposite edges defining respective edges of adjacent slider portions;
• b) cutting away the dice lane with a blade to form an edge surface of a slider along a respective dice lane edge;
• and
• c) forming a barrier trench in the nominal surface along each dice lane edge, each barrier trench having a predetermined depth into the nominal surface and having a width that extends a predetermined distance into the respective slider portion from the respective dice lane edge to minimize ridges in the air bearing surface on the rail.