JPH08203230A - Head for magnetic recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To obtain a head for a magnetic recording medium, in which the positional accuracy of the sliding face of a slider to a protrusion like a pivot can be enhanced. CONSTITUTION: The head for magnetic disk is provided with a slider 20 which faces a magnetic recording medium and a gimbal 200 which comprises an elastic member 40 used to support the slider 20 elastically. In the head for magnetic disk, a protrusion 22 which transmits the load of the gimbal 200 to the slider 20 and which is used as the starting point of the degree of freedom of the elastic deformation of the elastic member 40 is formed on the slider 20.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improved head for a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic disk.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As the capacity of a magnetic disk, which is a magnetic recording medium, increases and the size of the magnetic disk advances, the head (magnetic head) for the magnetic recording medium becomes smaller and the magnetic head for the magnetic disk becomes smaller. The low levitation of is being advanced. In order to achieve this miniaturization and low flying height, conventionally, magnetic heads as shown in FIGS. 10 to 14 have been used. This magnetic head has a structure in which a slider 2 is bonded to a gimbal 1. Gimbal 1
It comprises a mount 3, a flexure 4, and a load beam 5. The mount portion 3 is for fixing the head to an arm (not shown). The flexure 4 is made of an elastic material such as a metal plate.
Has the freedom of axis. The load beam 5 connects the mount portion 3 and the flexure 4 and applies a load to the slider 2.

In the conventional magnetic head, its flexure 4
Alternatively, a dimple 6 that transmits the load of the gimbal 1 to the load beam 5 and serves as a starting point of biaxial freedom is provided. The two axes are the rolling direction and the pitching direction with respect to the traveling direction of the head with respect to the magnetic disk. This dimple 6 is also called a pivot, and is hereinafter referred to as a pivot.

The force transmitted to the slider 2 of the magnetic head through the pivot 6 and the air sliding surface (ABS, Air Bearing Surface) of the slider 2.
The lift force from 7 determines the balanced flying height of the magnetic head. Therefore, in order to realize a low flying height of the magnetic head, the magnetic head has been designed so that the load of the air sliding surface 7 of the slider / the magnetic head has a small value which is expected. At the same time, as the flying height of the magnetic head is lowered, it is becoming important to reduce the variation in the flying height of the magnetic head. Therefore, the variation in the weight of the magnetic head and the variation in the dimension of the slider 2 which influences the lift of the air sliding surface 7 of the slider 2 are also reduced. In addition to these factors, it is necessary to control the balance of the flying height between the air sliding surfaces 7 (rails) in order to reduce the variation in the flying height of the magnetic head. It is mainly the offset of the spring of the flexure 4 that affects the control characteristics of the balance of the flying height.
In other words, the load applied to the slider 2 through the pivot 6 is not perpendicular to the air sliding surface 7 but has an inclination, and a biaxial component of the flexure 4 is generated. In addition to this, the positional relationship between the air sliding surfaces 7 and 7 and the pivot 6 and the shape of the air sliding surface 7 affect the control characteristics of the flying height balance.
In order to take these measures, improvement of component accuracy, processing accuracy, or assembly accuracy has been attempted.

[0005]

However, as a result of further miniaturization of the magnetic head, that is, miniaturization of the slider 2, the demand for improvement in the positional accuracy of the pivot 6 with respect to the air sliding surface 7 has been mentioned above. It is becoming difficult to achieve with conventional manufacturing methods. In the conventional manufacturing type head shown in FIGS. 11 to 14, the reference holes 8 of the gimbal 1 are
Positioning with the slider 2 is performed with 9 as the reference. In this case, the positional accuracy between the reference holes 8 and 9 of the gimbal 1 and the pivot 6 has an error that cannot be ignored with respect to the required accuracy. As shown in FIGS. 12 to 14, the pivot 6 is provided on the load beam 5, and the air sliding surface 7 and the pivot 6 of the slider 2 are provided on different members, and the air sliding surface 7 and the pivot 6 are provided. It is difficult to improve the positional accuracy of the magnetic head, and it is difficult to reduce the flying height of the magnetic head.

Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and provides a head for a magnetic recording medium capable of improving the positional accuracy between the sliding surface of the slider and the protrusion such as the pivot. It is an object.

[0007]

According to the present invention, there is provided a slider having an air sliding surface facing a magnetic recording medium, and an elastic member for elastically supporting the slider. In a head for a magnetic recording medium including a gimbal having a member, the slider is provided with a protrusion for transmitting a load of the gimbal to the slider and serving as a starting point of a degree of freedom of elastic deformation of the elastic member. Achieved by a media head. In the invention of claim 2, preferably, the protrusion is a pivot, and the protrusion is formed on a surface opposite to a surface of the slider facing the magnetic recording medium. In the invention of claim 3, preferably, the protrusion is a pivot, and the protrusion is formed on a surface of the slider facing the magnetic recording medium.

[0008]

According to the present invention, the slider is provided with a protrusion, and by this protrusion, the load of the gimbal is transmitted to the slider and the protrusion serves as a starting point of the degree of freedom of elastic deformation. The positional accuracy between the air sliding surface and the protrusion can be improved.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The examples described below are
Since it is a preferred specific example of the present invention, various technically preferable limitations are attached, but the scope of the present invention is, unless otherwise stated to limit the present invention, in the following description.
It is not limited to these modes.

Embodiment 1 FIG. 1 shows a preferred embodiment of the slider of the magnetic head of the present invention.

A pivot 22 is formed on the rear surface 21 of the slider 20 so as to protrude preferably at a substantially central portion. Two air sliding surfaces (ABS surfaces) 24, also called rails, are formed on the front surface 23 side of the slider 21 so as to project in parallel along the longitudinal direction of the slider 20, for example.

An example of the manufacturing process of the slider 20 shown in FIG. 1 is shown in FIGS. FIG. 2 shows an example of manufacturing the slider 20 of FIG. 1 by machining.
Indicates a case of manufacturing by ion etching or the like. FIG. 2A shows the material 20a of the slider 20. The air sliding surface 24 is already formed on the material 20a. As shown in FIG.
As shown in (b), it grinds by the grindstone B in the arrow S direction. As a result, as shown in FIG. 2C, one protrusion 22a is formed on the back surface 21 along the width direction of the material 20a. Next, the back surface 21 is polished again by changing the direction of the grindstone B of FIG. As a result,
As shown in (d), a small cube-shaped or rectangular parallelepiped-shaped pivot 22 is formed.

On the other hand, in the ion etching method shown in FIG. 3, the resist 21b of FIG. 3 (b) is applied to the back surface 21 of the slider material 20a of FIG. 3 (a). Then, as shown in FIG. 3C, a resist masking 21c is formed, and as shown in FIG. 3D, ion etching is performed to leave a necessary portion. As a result, as shown in FIG. 3E, the columnar pivot 22 is moved to the rear surface 21 of the slider 20.
Is formed in a protruding shape with respect to.

FIG. 4 shows a slider 20 made by the ion etching method in FIG. 3, a flexure 40 as an elastic member, and a part of a load beam 50. The columnar pivot 22 is formed, for example, substantially in the center of the back surface 21. For example, the back surface 21 is fixed to the portion 40a of the flexure 40 by adhesion, for example. The reference hole 40b of the flexure 40 and the reference hole 50b of the load beam 50 are aligned and fixed to each other.

The magnetic head thus manufactured is shown in FIGS. 5 is a side view of the magnetic head, and FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the magnetic head of FIG. The pivot 22 contacts the contact surface 40c of the flexure 40. The pivot 22 is a slider 20.
The load of the gimbal 200 is provided on the slider 2
It also serves as a starting point for the degree of freedom of elastic deformation of the flexure 40 that is transmitted to zero and is an elastic member. Support portion 40d of flexure 40
On the other hand, the portion 40a is elastically movable in two axial directions with a degree of freedom. The biaxial degree of freedom is the degree of freedom of rolling and pitching operations with respect to the head traveling direction with respect to the magnetic disk.

As described above, in the embodiment of FIGS. 4 to 6 described above, the pivot 22 as a protrusion is formed so as to project at one position on the back surface 21 of the slider 20.
0, load beam 50, and mount portion 60 (not shown)
No pivot is provided on the gimbal 200 side including.
That is, since the pivot 22 and the air sliding surface 7 are formed on the same slider 20, the dimensional positional accuracy of the air sliding surfaces 7, 7 of the slider 20 and the pivot 22 can be further improved. Moreover, since the pivot 22 can be formed on the slider 20 by a method such as ion etching as shown in FIG. 3 or a mechanical processing as shown in FIG. 2, it can be produced more economically. . In order to control the tip shape of the pivot and the height of the pivot with high accuracy, the ion etching method is more preferable than the machining.

Embodiment 2 In contrast to the embodiment of FIGS. 4 to 6, FIGS. 7 to 9 show a preferred embodiment 2 of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 7, two air sliding surfaces 7, 7 and a pivot 122 are formed on one surface side of the slider 120. The pivot 122 and the air sliding surfaces 7 and 7 can be simultaneously manufactured by a method such as machining shown in FIG. 2 or ion etching shown in FIG.

The flexure 140 as an elastic member has substantially the same shape as the flexure 40 shown in FIG. The load beam 150 has substantially the same shape as the load beam 50 of FIG. The load beam 150, the flexure 140, and the mount 160 are mounted on the gimbal 3
00 is configured. The portion 140a of the flexure 140
On the other hand, the side portion 120c of the slider 120 is adhered by an adhesive, for example. The pivot 122 contacts the surface 140c of the support portion 140d of the flexure 140. The pivot 122 is provided on the slider 120.
Is mounted on the slider 1 to load the gimbal 300.
20 and serves as a starting point of biaxial freedom of elastic deformation of the flexure 140 which is an elastic member. What are the two degrees of freedom?
This is the degree of freedom of rolling and pitching operations with respect to the traveling direction of the head with respect to the magnetic disk.

A taper portion 7h is formed on the air sliding surface 7 of the first embodiment shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. Similarly, the air sliding surface 7 of the second embodiment shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 also has a tapered surface 7g.

As described above, in the embodiment of the present invention,
Since the pivot and the air sliding surface are formed on the same slider and it is no longer necessary to form the pivot on the gimbal side as in the past, we aim to improve the dimensional accuracy from the reference hole of the gimbal to the pivot as in the past. It is not necessary, and the positional accuracy of the air sliding surface and the pivot can be easily and significantly improved. This can improve the low flying performance of the magnetic head.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. In the embodiment of FIGS. 4 to 6, the pivot is formed on the back surface of the slider opposite to the surface facing the recording medium, and in the embodiment 2 of FIGS. 7 to 9, the pivot faces the recording medium. It is formed on the side surface, that is, on the side on which the air sliding surface is formed. However, the number of the air sliding surfaces is not limited to the two in the first and second embodiments described above, and the number of air sliding surfaces may be three or more. Further, the magnetic disk which is the magnetic recording medium of the present invention includes a hard disk, a floppy disk and other types of recording media.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, the positional accuracy of the sliding surface of the slider and the protrusion such as the pivot can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an enlarged perspective view showing a first preferred embodiment of a slider of a magnetic head of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a case where the slider of the magnetic head shown in FIG. 1 is machined.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of manufacturing the slider of the magnetic head of FIG. 1 by a processing method such as ion etching.

FIG. 4 is an exploded perspective view showing a first preferred embodiment of the magnetic head of the present invention.

5 is a side view of the magnetic head of Example 1 of FIG.

6 is a cross-sectional view of the magnetic head in FIG.

FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view showing a second preferred embodiment of the magnetic head of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a view of the magnetic head of FIG. 7 viewed from a side surface.

9 is a cross-sectional view of the magnetic head of FIG.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view showing an example of a conventional magnetic head.

11 is an exploded view of the flexure and slider of the magnetic head of FIG.

FIG. 12 is a conventional load beam, flexure,
FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view showing a slider.

FIG. 13 is a side view of a conventional magnetic head.

FIG. 14 is a sectional view of a conventional magnetic head.

[Explanation of symbols]

 7 Air sliding surface (ABS surface) 20 Slider 22 Pivot (projection) 40 Flexure 50 Load beam 60 Mount section 200 Gimbal

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A head for a magnetic recording medium comprising a slider having an air sliding surface facing a magnetic recording medium and a gimbal having an elastic member for elastically supporting the slider, wherein the slider comprises: A head for a magnetic recording medium, which is provided with a protrusion for transmitting a load of the gimbal to a slider and serving as a starting point of a degree of freedom of elastic deformation of the elastic member. 2. The magnetic recording medium head according to claim 1, wherein the protrusion is a pivot, and the protrusion is formed on a surface of the slider opposite to a surface facing the magnetic recording medium. 3. The magnetic recording medium head according to claim 1, wherein the protrusion is a pivot, and the protrusion is formed on a surface of the slider facing the magnetic recording medium.