Solder ball disposing apparatus, solder ball reflow apparatus, and solder ball bonding apparatus

A solder ball reflow apparatus for allowing a solder ball resting to reflow in a state where the ball is in contact with a first bonding surface of a pad formed on a slider held by a slider holding unit for a disk drive;

• and a second bonding surface of a pad formed on an end portion of a lead disposed on the slider holding unit, and positioned in the vicinity of and substantially perpendicularly to a plane including the first bonding surface, the apparatus comprising:
• a head gimbal assembly holding unit for holding at least the slider holding unit with the slider so that each of the first and second bonding surfaces is tilted from a vertical direction, and having an accommodating portion for forming an environmental space to accommodate the first and second bonding surfaces, and an inert gas supply portion for supplying an inert gas to make the atmosphere of the environmental space inactive;
• and
• an optical unit having a laser beam output opening for outputting converged laser beams, wherein the laser bean output opening approaches the solder ball that has contracted both the first and second bonding surfaces to radiate laser beams of a prescribed spot diameter to the solder ball;
• wherein
• when the laser beams are radiated onto the solder ball, the atmosphere of the environmental space is made inactive by an inert gas supplied from the inert gas supply portion;
• and
• a solder ball bonding apparatus having a solder ball disposing apparatus, comprising:
• a solder ball feeder unit positioned apart from the slider holding unit that holds the slider in which each of the first and second bonding surfaces is held obliquely from a vertical direction by a prescribed distance;
• wherein
• the solder ball feeder unit accommodates a plurality of solder balls in the internal space thereof, and has ejecting holes formed on the bottom of the internal space for ejecting a gas to blow the solder balls and solder ball discharging holes formed in the upper portion of the internal space for discharging the blown solder balls out of the solder ball feeder unit;
• and the apparatus further comprising:
• a suction pad having a suction hole formed on a tip for sucking solder balls discharged from the discharging holes into the suction hole, and transporting and releasing the solder balls to and at the location where the solder balls contact the first and/or second bonding surface(s), or approach the first and second bonding surfaces;
• wherein
• the suction pad and the optical unit are integrally formed.