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US 6,714,382 B1Granted
Self-limiting wear contact pad slider and method for making the same
AssigneeHitachi Global Storage Technologies
InventorsPantelis S. Alexopoulos, Lee K. Dorius, Francis Chee-Shuen Lee, Timothy C. O'Sullivan, Gurinder Singh
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Abstract
The present invention provides a non-actuatable, self-limiting wear contact pad slider and method for making the same. A protruding element surrounding the transducer is fabricated using a third etch step so that the protruding element has a height that is greater than or equal to the designed fly height of the aerodynamic lift surface minus the disk roughness.
Claims26
A slider for supporting a transducer above a moving recording medium comprising:
- a support structure having a leading and a trailing edge relative to the motion of the recording medium;
- and
- an air bearing structure positioned on the support structure extending to the trailing edge of the support structure, the air bearing structure having an air bearing surface and a non-actuatable, wearable pad positioned at the trailing end of the air bearing structure and extending above the air bearing surface, the air bearing surface being formed to provide a desired fly height and the wearable pad having a surface area of less than 5% of a total air bearing surface area and a predetermined height so that wearing of the pad during use produces an interference of zero at the desired fly height and provides negligible lift to the slider.
A system for storing and retrieving information, comprising:
- at least one rotating disk;
- a recording medium, disposed on the at least one rotating disk, the recording medium dragging air as the disk rotates and creating an air flow in parallel with a tangential velocity of the disk rotation;
- an actuator assembly disposed adjacent the at least one rotating disk for positioning a suspension assembly relative to the recording medium;
- and
- a slider disposed at a distal end of the suspension assembly for supporting a transducer above the rotating disk, the slider further comprising:
- a support structure having a leading and a trailing edge relative to the motion of the recording medium;
- and
- an air bearing structure positioned on the support structure extending to the trailing edge of the support structure, the air bearing structure having an air bearing surface and a non-actuatable, wearable pad positioned at the trailing end of the air bearing structure and extending above the air bearing surface, the air bearing surface being formed to provide a desired fly height and the wearable pad having a surface area of less than 5% of a total air bearing surface area and a predetermined height so that wearing of the pad during use produces an interference of zero at the desired fly height and provides negligible lift to the slider.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.