JPH1186250A - Manufacture for magnetic head slider - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a manufacture wherein the slider of an irregular shape of a magnetic head having the air bearing face of a fine and complicate shape used in a magnetic disk apparatus, etc. can be processed highly accurately in a dry etching process. SOLUTION: According to this method, more than ten or twenty strip-like blocks (row bar) 3 each having a plurality of magnetic head elements 4 are collectively bundled and attached to a metallic or ceramics base plate 1, and then an air bearing is formed by dry etching, whereby a magnetic head slider 10 is manufactured. The row bar 3 and the base plate 1 are bonded with the use of a dry film resist 2. Moreover, an instantaneous adhesive of low viscosity is supplied in a gap of row bars 3, thereby filling an aperture. The magnetic head elements 4 and metallic pad parts at side faces of the row bard can be protected from damages on dry etching.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic head used for a magnetic disk drive, a magnetic tape drive, and the like, and more particularly to a method of manufacturing a thin-film magnetic head slider for high-density recording which requires precise fine processing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a magnetic disk drive has been required to have a higher density as the amount of information increases. For this reason, in a magnetic head slider that performs recording on a recording medium and reproduces data from the recording medium, the distance between the recording medium and the magnetic head slider, that is, the flying height, continues to decrease, and the flying height is low. Is required to be constant from the outer circumference to the inner circumference.

As a magnetic head slider that can meet such demands, a modified slider designed based on the fluid dynamics of air has been proposed and put into practical use. The odd-shaped slider is characterized by having a concave portion called a cavity so as to generate a pressure lower than the atmospheric pressure, and is also called a negative pressure slider. Such a cavity
In the conventional machining centering on grinding with a grindstone, the intended machining accuracy has not been achieved, and machining of a complicated shape including a curve cannot be realized. Therefore, as a method of processing the cavity of the odd-shaped slider with high accuracy, a processing method using a dry etching method by applying a photolithography technique used in a wafer process of semiconductor manufacturing has been proposed and put into practical use.

Here, a conventional method for manufacturing a modified slider will be described with reference to FIG. First, the magnetic head is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 2A, the processing is performed in a state of a strip-shaped block (hereinafter referred to as a row bar) 3 having a plurality of magnetic head elements. In this method, after being cut out from the wafer of the thin film head, the air bearing surface is polished and processed so that the depth of the magnetic pole becomes appropriate. If these are handled one by one, productivity will be reduced and industrialization will not be possible, so dozens to twenty or so will be put together and aligned on a support plate called base 1, glued, and then dried. Generally, etching is performed. The base 1 also has a block shape other than the plate shape shown here, and is made of aluminum, stainless steel, ceramics or the like. For the adhesion between the low bar 3 and the base 1, a wax 12 for temporary fixing is used. A solid wax is rubbed on the base 1 heated in advance to the softening point of the wax or higher, or is dissolved in an appropriate solvent and applied on the base by spin coating.
With the base 1 heated above the softening point of the wax, the low bar 3 is pressed and gradually cooled to bond. FIG. 4B shows a state where the row bar 3 is bonded to the base 1.

Next, an appropriate resist is applied to the surface of the low bar adhered to the base, and is exposed and developed using a predetermined mask, thereby forming a resist pattern 8. This is installed in a dry etching apparatus, and a predetermined cavity shape is obtained by etching a low bar surface not covered with the resist pattern by an ion milling method usually using argon ions. Finally,
By separately processing the individual heads, a magnetic head 10 having a deformed slider as shown in FIG. 3 is completed.

[0006]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, low-speed wax is used by using a temporary fixing wax.
Because the bar is fixed to the base, the heat generated during the dry etching process often softens the wax, and the wax oozes out on the air bearing surface during the process, making it impossible to process into the correct cavity shape In the worst case, the low bar could come off the base. Further, the etching rate is reduced due to the influence of the gas generated from the wax, which is the largest factor of the processing variation. In dry etching, it is common for the substrate temperature to rise to around 100 ° C., and there has been a problem that it is difficult to use wax as an adhesive.

Further, a plurality of magnetic head elements are provided on the side surface of the actual row bar, and gold pads 11 for connection to the magnetic head element 4 are individually formed as shown in FIG. This makes it difficult to attach the low bars to the base in close contact with each other. For this reason,
Usually during ion milling using argon ions,
The accelerated energetic particles penetrate into the gap between the row bars and damage the gold pad 11 on the side, or spattered material from the opposing row bar may cause the gold pad 11
Redeposited on the surface (hereinafter referred to as re-sputtering phenomenon).
These phenomena degrade the quality of the magnetic head element and the connectivity of the pads, causing a problem in appearance quality.

[0008] In order to solve this problem, an object of the present invention is to process a deformed slider of a magnetic head having an air bearing surface of a fine and complicated shape with high precision by a dry etching process, to be inexpensive and suitable for mass production. To provide a method of manufacturing a magnetic head slider,
As a result, it contributes to the realization of a high recording density magnetic disk drive.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a dry bar which is to be used as a patterning material instead of a wax which has been generally used for bonding a row bar and a base. A film resist is used as an adhesive. The dry film resist itself has adhesiveness, and is formed of a poly film on both sides and sandwiched in a sandwich form to form a roll-shaped roll.
The cover film on one side can be peeled off and pressure-bonded with a roller heated to about 100 ° C. to be attached to the base. Thereafter, the protective film remaining on the upper surface is peeled off, and a row bar is aligned thereon and pressed to adhere to the base. Further, a small amount of an instant adhesive containing low-viscosity cyanoacrylate as a main component is applied between the row and bar using a dispenser or the like. At this time, the liquid flows between the low bars and fills the voids by capillary action, and a small amount of water on the surface causes a chemical reaction within a few minutes to harden. This resin covers the gold pad portion and functions as a protective film. Thereafter, a resist is applied to the air bearing forming surface, and a patterning step and dry etching are performed. After the predetermined cavity is formed, the raw bar can be easily peeled off from the base by immersing the raw bar in acetone.

According to the present invention, a modified slider having an air bearing surface having a fine and complicated shape can be processed with high precision by a dry etching process, and a magnetic head element and a connection pad on the side surface can be formed. It becomes possible to protect from the damage of the dry etching process.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing one example of a manufacturing process of a magnetic head slider according to the present invention. First, as shown in FIG. 1A, a dry film resist 2 is attached to a base 1. In this case, the resist used was Odile α series (thickness: 30 μm) manufactured by Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd. However, a negative dry film resist can be used in the same manner. Also, the resist thickness is 30
It is not limited to μm. The laminator device was set at 105 ° C for the upper and lower rolls and 3 kgf / cm ² for the pressure between the upper and lower rolls. Was carried out.

After cooling at room temperature, the protective film of the dry film resist is peeled off. As shown in FIG. 1 (b), the base 1 with the dry film was heated to 60 ° C.
The row bar 3 that has been aligned in advance is bonded by pressing with the dry-etched processing surface, that is, the air bearing forming surface 3a facing upward. Next, the entire surface of the base to which the low bar is attached is irradiated with ultraviolet rays 5. As the dry film resist is hardened, the bonding strength between the low bar 3 and the base 1 is increased, and problems such as peeling and displacement occurring during dry etching are completely eliminated.

Further, a small amount of a low-viscosity instant adhesive is applied to the gap between the attached low bars 3 using a dispenser manufactured by Musashi Engineering. At this time, due to the capillary phenomenon, the liquid flows between the low bars 3 to fill the voids, and a slight moisture on the surface causes a chemical reaction within a few minutes to harden. Instant adhesive can be cured at room temperature,
No equipment for curing such as a heating furnace or an ultraviolet irradiation furnace is required. FIG. 2A shows a state where the row bar 3 is adhered to the base 1, and FIG. 2B shows an enlarged view of a portion B in FIG. 2A. As shown in FIG.
The gap between the bars 3 is filled with the instant adhesive 6 to protect the magnetic head element 4 on the side surface and the connection gold pad portion 11. Here, as a low-viscosity instant adhesive, three-bond 17
Although 41 (3 cP) was used, an instant adhesive containing cyanoacrylate as a main component can be used in the same manner. Regarding the viscosity, 10, 35, 100, 500
When the resin was adjusted to cP and tested, the resin having a viscosity of 35 cP or more did not easily flow into the gap between the row and bar 3, and air bubbles remained due to insufficient filling. 20 cP low-viscosity resin flows well and is easy to handle with a dispenser.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1D, a dry film resist 7 is attached. This dry film resist 7 becomes a mask material for forming a cavity on the air bearing surface 3a. The same material as that of the dry film resist 2 was used, and bonding was performed under the same conditions as those for bonding the base 1.

Next, a predetermined resist pattern 8 is formed on the air bearing surface 3a by exposing from above the dry film resist 7 through a predetermined reticle mask and further developing.

Next, this is set in an ion milling apparatus, and ion milling is performed using argon gas.
The surface of the low bar, which is not covered with the resist pattern 8, is etched to form a predetermined cavity 9 as shown in FIG.

Finally, the resists 2 and 8 and the instant adhesive 6 are dissolved by immersion in acetone. The magnetic bar slider 10 is completed as shown in FIG. 3 by separating the low bar peeled from the base into individual heads. In the magnetic head slider 10 manufactured in this manner, damage to the connection gold pad 11 on the side surface and re-sputtering were not observed at all.

Hereinafter, two examples will be shown as comparative examples, which are used as data for evaluating the effectiveness of the present invention. <Comparative Example 1> Referring to the manufacturing process diagram of the magnetic head slider shown in FIG. 1, as shown in FIG. 1C, the resin flowing into the gap between the row bars 3 is a solvent-evaporating resin (vinyl acetate). When 1400 series manufactured by Three Bond Co., Ltd. was used, 1401D (viscosity 19 cP) had good permeability and filled voids, and there was no problem in curing. However, since the resin contained methanol as a solvent, the low bar 3 and the adhesive layer 2 of the base 1 swelled or dissolved in the worst case.

<Comparative Example 2> With reference to the manufacturing process diagram of the magnetic head slider shown in FIG. 1, as shown in FIG.
Anaerobic adhesive, Nippon Loctite 290 (viscosity 13)
When cP) was used, the permeability was good and the voids could be filled, but some portions were not cured. In the anaerobic resin, the initiation radical is generated by the reaction between the peroxide and the metal ion, and the polymerization starts, so that the metal ion (Fe, C
u, Ni, etc.), curing did not proceed well.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the step of processing the air bearing surface of the odd-shaped slider by the dry etching method, the dry film resist is used for bonding the low bar to the base. The reliability of bonding is improved, and high-speed and high-precision etching can be performed as compared with the related art.

Further, since the side surfaces of the low bar are protected by the resin, the magnetic head element and the connecting gold pad are not damaged at all during the etching process, and the process yield is remarkably improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing one embodiment of the present invention, and is a manufacturing process diagram of a method for manufacturing a magnetic head slider.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing one embodiment of the present invention, and is a perspective view showing a state where a low bar is adhered to a base.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a magnetic head slider according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view showing a method for manufacturing a magnetic head slider according to a conventional method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 base 2 dry film resist 3 low bar (slider material) 4 magnetic head element 5 ultraviolet ray 6 low viscosity instant adhesive 7 dry film resist 8 resist pattern 9 cavity 10 magnetic head slider 11 gold pad 12 wax

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method of manufacturing a magnetic head slider for processing into a predetermined air bearing shape by dry etching, comprising: forming a strip-shaped block having a plurality of magnetic head elements on a predetermined base plate in advance; A method of manufacturing a magnetic head slider, characterized in that a low-viscosity resin is poured between strip-shaped blocks that have been pasted, and then installed in a dry etching apparatus to perform etching. 2. The method for manufacturing a magnetic head slider according to claim 1, wherein the low-viscosity resin is an instant adhesive containing cyanoacrylate as a main component. 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the viscosity of the low-viscosity resin is 20 cP or less.