Patent ID: 6690545
Filing Date: 2004-02-10
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
An air bearing slider for use in disk drive including a rotatable magnetic disk, the slider comprising:a leading side and a trailing side; a pressurized pad including a pressurized pad air bearing surface, the pressurized pad being disposed between the leading and trailing sides; and a contact pad disposed adjacent the trailing side and including a contact surface for sliding contact with the magnetic disk during operation of the disk drive, the contact pad including a transducer disposed within the contact pad for reading and writing data from and to the magnetic disk; a depressed region disposed between the pressurized pad and the contact pad for mitigating air pressure adjacent the contact surface relative to air pressure adjacent the pressurized pad air bearing surface during operation of the disk drive; a pressurized pad support base, the pressurized pad extending from the pressurized pad support base; a contact pad support base, the contact pad extending from the contact pad support base; and a main support structure, the pressurized pad support base and the contact pad support base extending from the main support structure, the depressed region extending from the main support structure between the pressurized pad support base and the contact pad support base.