JPH01227211A - Manufacture of thin film magnetic head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a thin film magnetic head which prevent the occurrence of etching remainder at the tip of resin by forming a thin film which is a mask material, after that, etching this thin film and an upper magnetic film with photoresist films as a mask and obtaining a prescribed form. CONSTITUTION:After forming a lower magnetic film 12, a gap film 13, a conductor film 14 and a layer insulating layer film 15 on a substrate 11, an upper magnetic film 16 and an alumina 17 as a tip mask part are formed by a spattering method. Next, an upper photoresist 21 and a lower photoresist 22 are formed on step parts. With these resists 21 and 22 as the mask material, the alumina film 17 is patterned by a method in which CF4 gas is used and the magnetic film 16 is patterned by using AR gas. Next, the resists 21 and 22 are peeled off and a photoresist 23 to etch a resin tip 18 is formed. Next, the tip 18 is removed by a method in which oxygen gas is used, the photoresist 23 is peeled off the etching remainder of the resin tip is prevented from occurring.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head, and more particularly to a method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head in which no interlayer insulating layer is exposed.

[Conventional technology]

As the density and speed of magnetic recording increases, it is required to reduce the depth of the magnetic gap as much as possible in order to improve the performance of thin-film magnetic heads. This magnetic gap is formed by polishing the surface of the magnetic head, but if the interlayer insulating layer resin of the conductor coil used in the magnetic head is exposed on the polished surface (track surface) during machining, , it crashes into the magnetic disk surface and destroys the signal. For this reason, conventionally, JP-A-59-
As shown in Japanese Patent Application No. 30220, a widely used method is to form an upper magnetic film pattern and then remove the tip of the insulating layer resin by etching.

As a specific example of this etching method, the above-mentioned known examples include an ion milling method using oxygen etc.
The possibility of wet etching has also been shown,
Regardless of which method is used, it is necessary to cover this portion with photoresist or the like in order to protect the upper magnetic film pattern.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, when forming a photoresist pattern again on the upper magnetic film part that has been patterned, in the actual manufacturing process, the pattern position will inevitably shift. This caused the composite edge layer resin to remain unetched.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for accurately removing the tip of an insulating layer resin.

[Means to solve the problem]

The purpose is to form a thin film that can be used as a mask material (hereinafter referred to as a tip mask film) on top of the upper magnetic film in advance in the process of removing the tip of the insulating layer resin.
This is achieved by etching this thin film and the upper magnetic film using the same photoresist pattern as a mask material to obtain a predetermined pattern shape, and then removing the tip of the insulating layer resin.

Generally, in the step of removing the tip of the insulating layer resin, reactive dry etching using oxygen is often used as shown in the known examples, so the material of the tip mask film is A material with excellent oxygen etching resistance, ie, a material with a slow oxygen etching rate, is desirable. Specific examples include inorganic oxides such as aluminum oxide and silicon oxide, and metals such as chromium.

Furthermore, if the thickness of this tip mask film is too small, the surface of the upper magnetic film will be exposed during the tip removal process, resulting in a decrease in the thickness of the upper magnetic film or a change in quality of the upper magnetic film surface. It is known that problems arise due to
It is also known that if the thickness of the tip mask film is too large, the patterning accuracy of the upper magnetic film deteriorates, resulting in large variations in the track width that determines the recording density. Therefore, it is desirable to determine the thickness of the tip mask film to be as thin as possible while taking into consideration the oxygen etching rate, and it is generally desirable to apply the thickness in the range of 0.1 to 1.0 μm.

When etching the tip mask film and the upper magnetic film, a dry etching method using argon gas is often used, but in general, argon etching is the preferred material for the tip mask film, that is, a material with a slow oxygen etching rate. The etching speed is often slow, and the dimensional variation of the upper magnetic film after patterning is often large. An effective method to avoid this is to pattern the tip mask film by reactive dry etching using a gas other than argon, and then pattern the upper magnetic film using dry etching using argon gas. be. For example, when an aluminum oxide 11 film is used as the tip mask film, it is better to use argon gas after etching the aluminum oxide film using carbon fluoride or carbon chloride gas than when using argon gas alone. When etching the upper magnetic film using etching, the etching speed is higher and dimensional variations are smaller.

On the other hand, in order to apply the above-mentioned means and to etch the tip mask film and the upper magnetic film using a photoresist pattern as a mask material, it is necessary to form the photoresist with high precision. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the photoresist film thickness as much as possible at the bottom of the insulating layer resin step. For example, the photoresist forming process may be divided into two, and the photoresist for the top and bottom of the step may be formed separately. is desirable. Especially when applying the dry etching method,
The above method is effective in preventing re-adhesion to the sidewalls of the photoresist pattern.

[Effect]

By taking the above-mentioned measures, since the top surface of the upper magnetic film is protected by the tip mask film, it becomes unnecessary to form a highly accurate photoresist in the step of removing the tip of the insulating layer resin.

Furthermore, since the thickness of the tip mask film is smaller than the thickness of the upper magnetic film (usually 1 to 3 μm), dimensional variations in the upper magnetic film can be reduced during etching.

Furthermore, since the tip mask film and the upper magnetic film can be etched in the same process using the same photoresist pattern as a mask, the number of steps is also reduced.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. 1 and 2 show part of the manufacturing process of a thin film magnetic head using the method of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of the magnetic head element section, and FIG. 2 is a top view. show.

First, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2(a), a lower magnetic film 12 is placed on a substrate 11. After forming each pattern of the gap film 13, the conductor coil 142, and the interlayer insulation layer resin IS,
An upper magnetic film 16 and an alumina film (thickness: 0.4 μm) 17 as a tip mask film were formed by sputtering. Next, as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2(b),
Patterns of an upper photoresist 21 and a lower photoresist 22 were formed at the stepped portions. Using these photoresist patterns 21 and 22 as mask materials, first, C.
The alumina film 17 was patterned by ion milling using F4 gas, and then the upper magnetic film 16 was patterned by ion milling using argon gas, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2(c). I got the structure. Then,
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 (cl), after peeling off the photoresists 21 and 22,
As shown in Figure (e), a photoresist 23 for etching the resin tip 18 was formed.

At this time, since the surface of the upper magnetic film 16 was covered with the alumina film 17, there was no need to form a highly accurate photoresist pattern. Next, the resin tip 18 is removed by ion milling using oxygen gas, and the photoresist 23 is removed.
By peeling off the film, a thin film magnetic head having the structure shown in FIGS. 1 and 2(f) was obtained.

The thus obtained magnetic head has greatly improved reliability compared to the conventional magnetic head because no etching residue is left on the resin tip due to misalignment of the photoresist.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, since the tip portion of the interlayer insulating layer resin can be reliably removed, a thin film magnetic head that does not cause a crash with a magnetic disk can be obtained.

[BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS] FIGS. 1 and 2 are diagrams showing steps as an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a thin film magnetic head;
FIG. 2 represents a top view. 11... Substrate, 12... Lower magnetic film, 13. ... Gap film, 14... Conductor coil, 15... Interlayer insulating layer resin, 16... Upper magnetic film, 17... Tip mask film, 18... Resin tip, 21...・Top photoresist, 22...Fig. 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A method for manufacturing a thin film magnetic head in which a lower magnetic film, a gap material, a conductor coil, an organic resin interlayer insulating film, and an upper magnetic film are sequentially formed on a substrate, wherein a protective layer is provided on the upper part of the magnetic film. a first step of forming a thin film, a second step of etching the protective thin film and the upper magnetic film using a photosensitive resin film as a mask material, and etching the organic resin interlayer insulating film using the protective thin film as a mask material. A method for manufacturing a thin film magnetic head, comprising a third step of partially etching. 2. The method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head according to claim 1, wherein the protective thin film is made of an inorganic oxide or a metal. 3. In claim 1 or 2, the step of forming the photosensitive resin film in the second step is a step of forming the photosensitive resin film on the top and bottom of the stepped portion of the organic resin interlayer insulating film. A method for manufacturing a thin film magnetic head characterized by dividing the process into two steps.