Patent ID: 6360427
Filing Date: 2002-03-26
Classification: G11B,Y10T

Abstract:
A method of producing a support mechanism for magnetic head sliders, wherein the support mechanism has a magnetic head slider attached at its distal end, and wherein the support mechanism is supported at its proximal end by a rotational shaft, the support mechanism being moved to take a read and write position and an offset position therefrom relative to a magnetic disk and comprising: i) a flexure having a substrate and including a conductor layer formed on the disk side surface of the substrate, which conductor layer having slider pads and terminal pads, the slider pads being connected to a magnetic head of the magnetic head slider and terminal pads being connected to external wiring and exposed on the rear side surface of the substrate; ii) a load beam jointed longitudinally to the flexure substrate; and iii) an arm having its proximal end attached to a rotational shaft and having its distal end portion joined to the joining region of the proximal end portion of the load beam, the method comprising:a first step of forming an insulating pattern having at least one opening in the disk side surface of the flexure substrate, the openings being located to correspond to said at least one terminal pads; a second step of forming a plating feed layer on the insulating layer and the exposed disk side surface of the flexure substrate; a third step of i) forming a first resist layer on the plating feed layer except the region on which the conductor layer is formed and also forming the first resist layer on the rear side surface of the flexure substrate and ii) sequentially laminating an etching stopper layer, an intermediate layer and a surface layer except the region on which the first resist is formed, by electric plating using the plating feed layer as an electrode, the three layers constituting the conductor layer; a forth step of removing the first resist layer and etching the feed layer using the conductor layer as a mask except the region on which the conductor is formed; a fifth step of forming a protection layer covering the conductor layer except the region where the slider pads are formed; a sixth step of i) forming a second resist on the rear side surface of the flexure substrate, the second resist having at least one opening at the positions corresponding to the terminal pads, and also forming the second resist on the entire disk side surface of the flexure substrate and ii) etching the flexure substrate and the feed layer on the flexure substrate using the second resist as a mask so as to form a substrate having at least one opening at the positions corresponding to the terminal pads; a seventh step of i) joining the rear side surface of the distal end portion of the flexure substrate to the disk side surface of the load beam after passing the flexure through the aperture formed in the load beam and ii) joining the disk side surface of the proximal end portion of the flexure substrate to the rear side surface of the load beam; a eighth step of joining the disk side surface of the joining region of the load beam to the rear side surface of the arm; and a ninth step of subjecting the load beam to a bending process with load.