Method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head

A method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head including a first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer, a gap layer, and a thin film coil consisting of one or more thin film coil layers. According to the method, the step of forming a first thin film coil layer of the thin film coil comprises, in succession, the steps of: forming a first inorganic insulating layer on a part of the first magnetic layer; forming coil-shaped recesses in the first insulating layer by a reactive ion etching such that the recesses have a width and a spacing which are equal to a width and a spacing of coil windings of the thin film coil layer to be formed and have a depth which is deeper than a height of the coil windings; depositing an electrically conductive material within the recesses by a chemical vapor deposition such that the recesses are completely filled with a deposited electrically conductive material and the surface of the first insulating layer is completely covered with the deposited electrically conductive material; polishing the deposited electrically conductive material such that coil windings are formed in the recesses and the surface of the first insulating layer is exposed to form a flat surface consisting of the exposed surface of the first insulating layer and upper surfaces of the coil windings; and forming a second insulating layer on the flat surface consisting of the exposed surface of the first insulating layer and the upper surfaces of the coil windings.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
 1. Field of the Invention
 The present invention relates to a thin film magnetic head and a method of
 manufacturing the same, and more particularly to an inductive type writing
 magnetic head and a method of manufacturing the same.
 2. Description of the Related Art
 Recently a surface recording density of a hard disc device has been
 improved, and it has been required to develop a thin film magnetic head
 having an improved performance accordingly. In order to satisfy such a
 requirement, there has been proposed a magnetic head, in which a reading
 or reproducing magnetic head and a writing or recording magnetic head are
 stacked one on the other. In such a magnetic head, an inductive type thin
 film magnetic head is used as the writing head and a magnetoresistive type
 thin film magnetic head is used as the reading head. As the
 magnetoresistive type magnetic head, a magnetoresistive element having a
 conventional anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) effect has been widely
 utilized. There has been further developed a magnetoresistive element
 utilizing a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) effect having a resistance change
 ratio higher than the normal anisotropic magnetoresistive effect by
 several times. In the present specification, these AMR and GMR elements
 are termed as a magnetoresistive reproducing element or MR reproducing
 element.
 By using the AMR element, a very high surface recording density of several
 gigabits per a unit square inch can be realized, and a surface recording
 density can be further increased by using the GMR element. By increasing a
 surface recording density in this manner, it is possible to realize a hard
 disc device which has a very large storage capacity of more than 10
 gigabytes and is small in size.
 A height of a magnetoresistive reproducing element (MR Height: MRH) is one
 of factors which determine a performance of a reproducing head including a
 magnetoresistive reproducing element. This MR height MRH is a distance
 measured from an air bearing surface on which the magnetoresistive
 reproducing element exposes to an edge of the element remote from the air
 bearing surface. During a manufacturing process of the magnetic head, a
 desired MR height MRH can be obtained by controlling an amount of
 polishing the air bearing surface.
 As stated above, a performance of the reproducing head may be improved by
 utilizing the GMR element. Then, a performance of a recording head is
 required to be improved accordingly. In order to increase a surface
 recording density, it is necessary to make a track density on a magnetic
 record medium as high as possible. For this purpose, a width of a pole
 portion and write gap at the air bearing surface has to be reduced to a
 value within a range from several microns to several submicrons. In order
 to satisfy such a requirement, the semiconductor manufacturing process has
 been utilized in manufacturing the thin film magnetic head.
 One of factors determining a performance of the inductive type thin film
 writing magnetic film is a throat height (TH). This throat height TH is a
 distance of a pole portion measured from the air bearing surface to an
 edge of an insulating layer which serves to separate a thin film coil from
 the air bearing surface. It has been required to shorten this distance as
 small as possible. This distance can be also determined by controlling an
 amount of polishing the air bearing surface.
 In order to improve a performance of the inductive type thin film writing
 magnetic head, it has been proposed to shorten a length of portions of
 bottom pole and top pole surrounding the thin film coil (in this
 specification, said length is called a magnetic path length).
 FIGS. 1-8 are cross sectional views showing successive steps of a known
 method of manufacturing a conventional typical composite magnetic head
 including a GMR element, said cross sectional views being cut along a
 plane perpendicular to the air bearing surface. In this example, a
 composite type thin film magnetic head is constructed by stacking an
 inductive type writing thin film magnetic head on a magnetoresistive type
 reading thin film magnetic head.
 At first, as illustrated in FIG. 1, on a substrate 1 made of a nonmagnetic
 material such as AlTiC, is deposited an insulating layer 2 made of alumina
 (Al.sub.2 O.sub.3) and having a thickness of about 5-10 .mu.m, a bottom
 shield layer 3 constituting a magnetic shield for the MR reproducing
 magnetic head and having a thickness of about 3-4 .mu.m is deposited on
 the insulating layer, and then a GMR layer 5 having a thickness of several
 tens nanometers (nm) is formed such that the GMR layer is embedded in a
 shield gap layer 4. On the shield gap layer 4, is further deposited a
 magnetic layer 6 made of a permalloy and having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m.
 This magnetic layer 6 serves not only as an upper shield layer for
 magnetically shielding the GMR reproducing element together with the above
 mentioned bottom shield layer 3, but also as a bottom magnetic layer of
 the inductive type writing thin film magnetic head. Here, for the sake of
 explanation, the magnetic layer 6 is called a first magnetic layer,
 because this magnetic layer constitutes one of magnetic layers forming the
 writing thin film magnetic head.
 Next, as shown in FIG. 2, on the first magnetic layer 6, is formed a write
 gap layer 7 made of a nonmagnetic material such as alumina to have a
 thickness of about 200 nm. A photo-resist layer 8 for determining a throat
 height TH is formed on the write gap layer 7 except for a portion which
 will constitute a pole portion, and then a thin copper layer 9 having a
 thickness of about 100 nm is deposited on a whole surface by sputtering.
 The copper layer 9 will serve as a seed layer for a process of forming a
 thin film coil by an electroplating, and thus this layer is also called a
 seed layer. On this seed layer 9, is formed a thick photo-resist layer 10
 having a thickness of 3 .mu.m, and openings 11 are formed in the
 photo-resist layer such that the seed layer 9 is exposed in the openings.
 A height of the openings is 2 .mu.m which is identical with a thickness of
 the photo-resist layer and a width of the openings is also 2 .mu.m.
 Next, an electroplating of copper is performed using an electroplating
 liquid of a copper sulfate to form coil windings 12 of a first thin film
 coil layer within the openings 11 formed in the photo-resist layer 10,
 said coil windings having a thickness of 2-3 .mu.m. A thickness of the
 coil windings 12 is preferably smaller than a depth of the openings 11.
 Then, as depicted in FIG. 4, after removing the photo-resist layer 10, a
 milling process is conducted with an argon ion beam to remove the seed
 layer 9 as shown in FIG. 5 such that the coil windings 12 are separated
 from each other to form a single body of a coil. During the ion beam
 milling, in order to avoid that a part of the seed layer 9 situating
 underneath the bottoms of the coil windings 12 is remained to extend from
 the thin film coil, the ion beam milling is performed with an incident
 angle of 5-10.degree.. When the ion beam milling is carried out with
 substantially upright angles, a material of the seed layer 9 which is
 spread by an impact of the ion beam is liable to be adhered to
 surroundings. Therefore, a distance between successive coil windings 12
 has to be large.
 Next, as illustrated in FIG. 6, a photo-resist layer 13 is formed such that
 the coil windings 12 of the first thin film coil layer are covered with
 the photo-resist layer, and after polishing a surface to be flat, coil
 windings 15 of a second thin film coil layer is formed on a seed layer 14
 by the same process as that described above. After forming a photo-resist
 layer 16, a second magnetic layer 17 made of a permalloy is formed to have
 a thickness of 3-7 .mu.m, said second magnetic layer constituting a top
 pole.
 Next, as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the write gap layer 7 and a surface of the
 first magnetic layer 6 are etched to form a trim structure, while a pole
 portion of the second magnetic layer 17 is utilized as an etching mask.
 Then, an overcoat layer 18 made of alumina is formed on a whole surface.
 It should be noted that FIG. 8 is a cross sectional view cut along a line
 8--8 in FIG. 7. In FIG. 8, there are shown first and second shield gap
 layers 4a and 4b constituting the shield gap layer 4 and conduction layers
 5a and 5b for providing an electrical connection to the GMR element.
 In an actual manufacturing process of the thin film magnetic head, after
 forming a number of the above mentioned structures on a single wafer, the
 wafer is divided into bars each including a plurality of thin film
 magnetic heads aligned along the bar, and a side wall of the bar is
 polished to obtain the air bearing surfaces 19 (refer to FIG. 7) of the
 magnetic heads. During the formation of the air bearing surface 19, the
 GMR layer 5 is also polished to obtain a composite type thin film magnetic
 head having desired throat height and MR height. Furthermore, in an actual
 process, contact pads for establishing electrical connections to the thin
 film coils 12, 15 and GMR reproducing element are formed. But these
 contact pads are not shown in the drawings.
 Moreover, an apex angle .theta. between a straight line S connecting side
 edges of the photo-resist layers 8, 13 and 16 on a side of the air bearing
 surface 19 and a surface plane of the substrate as shown in FIG. 7 is an
 important factor for determining a property of the thin film magnetic head
 together with the throat height and MR height.
 Further, since a track width on a magnetic record medium is determined by a
 width W of the trim structure formed by a pole portion 6a of the first
 magnetic layer 6 and a pole portion 17a of the second magnetic layer 17,
 it is necessary to make said width W as small as possible in order to
 realize a high surface recording density.
 In the known composite type thin film magnetic head manufactured by the
 above explained process, there is a problem in miniaturizing the inductive
 thin film writing magnetic head. That is to say, it has been known to
 improve characteristics such as flux rise time, non-linear transition
 shift (NLTS) and over write by reducing the magnetic path length L.sub.M
 which is a length of portions of the first magnetic layer 6 and second
 magnetic layer 17 which surround the coil windings 12 and 15 of the thin
 film coil as illustrated in FIG. 7. In order to reduce the magnetic path
 length L.sub.M, it is necessary to shorten a coil width L.sub.C of a
 portion of the thin film coil 12, 15 which surrounds the first and second
 magnetic layers 6 and 17. However, in the known thin film magnetic head,
 the coil width L.sub.C could not be shortened due to the following
 reasons.
 In order to shorten the coil width L.sub.C in the known thin film magnetic
 head, it is necessary to decrease a width of respective coil windings as
 well as to reduce a width of a spacing between successive coil windings.
 However, a reduction in a width of the coil winding is limited due to a
 fact that a resistance of the coil winding should be low. That is to say,
 although a coil winding is made of a copper having a low resistance, a
 height of a coil winding is limited to 2-3 .mu.m , and thus a width of the
 coil winding could not be smaller than 1.5 .mu.m. Therefore, in order to
 shorten the coil width L.sub.C, it is necessary to reduce a spacing
 between successive coil windings.
 However, in the known thin film magnetic head, a coil spacing between
 adjacent coil windings 12, 15 could not be shortened due to the following
 reasons.
 As stated above, the coil windings 12, 15 are formed by the electroplating
 method, in which the seed layer 9 having a thickness of 100 nm is formed
 for uniformly depositing a copper over a whole surface of a wafer, the
 coil windings 12, 15 are formed by selectively depositing a copper within
 the openings 11 in which the seed layer is exposed, and the seed layer 9
 is selectively removed for separating respective coil windings. Upon
 removing the seed layer 9, an ion milling, for instance an argon ion
 milling is carried out while the coil windings 12, 15 are used as a mask.
 Here, in order to remove the seed layer 9 between successive coil windings
 12, 15, it would be preferable to conduct the ion milling from a direction
 perpendicular to the substrate surface. However, when the ion milling is
 effected from such a direction, copper debris might adhere to side walls
 of the coil windings and successive coil windings might not be isolated
 sufficiently. In order to avoid such a problem, in the known thin film
 magnetic head, a spacing between successive coil windings could not be
 shortened.
 Furthermore, in order to solve the above problem, an ion milling may be
 performed with an incident angle of 40-45.degree.. Then, an ion beam could
 not be sufficiently made incident upon shadow portions of the photoresist
 10 and the seed layer 9 might be remained. In this manner, in order to
 avoid the degradation of the insulation between successive coil windings
 12, 15, a spacing between adjacent coil windings could not be shortened.
 Therefore, in the known thin film magnetic head, a spacing between
 successive coil windings has to be wider such as 2-3 .mu.m and could not
 be made smaller than 2-3 .mu.m.
 Moreover, upon forming the thin film coil windings 12, 15 by the above
 mentioned electroplating method, in order to guarantee a uniformity in a
 thickness of the coil windings, it is necessary to stir a plating solution
 such as a copper sulfate. If a thickness of walls defining the openings 11
 in the photoresist layer 10 is made smaller for reducing a spacing between
 successive coil windings, the thin walls might be destroyed and the thin
 film coil could not be formed accurately. Therefore, a spacing between
 adjacent coil windings of the thin film coil could not be shortened also
 due to this reason.
 In the known thin film magnetic head, a reference position for a throat
 height TH, that is a throat height zero position is given by the
 photoresist layer 8. After forming the first thin film coil layer 12, the
 photoresist layer 8 is also etched by the etching process for selectively
 removing the seed layer 9. Then, an edge which defines the throat height
 zero position is also etched away from the air bearing surface. In this
 manner, it is impossible to attain a thin film magnetic head having a
 desired throat height which follows accurately a designed value, and this
 is one of causes for decreasing a manufacturing yield.
 In order to improve the NLTS property of the thin film magnetic head, it is
 considered to increase the number of coil windings of the thin film coil.
 However, in order to increase the number of coil windings, it would be
 necessary to increase the number of layers of the thin film coil such as
 four or five layers. Then, an apex angle might be too large and it is
 impossible to achieve the narrow track. In order to restrict an apex angle
 to a certain value, the number of the coil layers has to be restricted to
 three, preferable two. Then, the number of coil windings could not be
 increased in the known thin film magnetic head.
 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
 The present invention has for its object to provide a novel and useful
 inductive type thin film magnetic head, in which the above mentioned
 problems could be solved by reducing a spacing between successive coil
 windings to decrease a coil width L.sub.C, and as a result thereof a
 magnetic path length L.sub.M could be decreased to improve characteristics
 of the thin film magnetic head.
 It is another object of the invention to provide a method of manufacturing
 the thin film magnetic head having the above mentioned improved
 characteristics in an easy and accurate manner.
 According to the invention, a thin film magnetic head comprises:
 a first magnetic layer having a pole portion;
 a second magnetic layer having a pole portion which constitutes an air
 bearing surface together with said pole portion of the first magnetic
 layer and being magnetically coupled with said first magnetic layer;
 a gap layer made of a non-magnetic material and being interposed between
 said pole portion of the first magnetic layer and said pole portion of the
 second magnetic layer;
 a thin film coil consisting of one or more thin film coil layers and having
 a portion which is arranged between said first and second magnetic layers
 and is supported by an insulating material in an electrically isolated
 manner; and
 a substrate supporting said first and second magnetic layers, gap layer and
 thin film coil;
 wherein said one thin film coil layer or at least one of said more than one
 thin film coil layers comprises a first insulating layer, coil windings
 formed by an electrically conductive material deposited in coil-shaped
 recesses formed in a surface of said first insulating layer, and a second
 insulating layer covering said first insulating layer and coil windings.
 In the thin film magnetic head according to the invention, said first
 insulating layer may be made of an inorganic insulating material,
 particularly silicon oxide, silicon nitride and alumina. These inorganic
 insulating materials are mechanically strong and thus can be subjected to
 a fine machining. Therefore, a distance between adjacent recesses, i.e. a
 spacing between successive coil windings of the thin film coil can be
 smaller than 1 .mu.m, particularly can be set to a value within a range of
 0.3-0.5 .mu.m. If a spacing between successive coil windings is set to be
 smaller than 0.3 .mu.m, walls defining the recess might be broken and
 successive coil windings might not be isolated sufficiently. Moreover, if
 a spacing between successive coil windings is larger than 0.5 .mu.m, a
 magnetic path length could be sufficiently decreased. According to the
 invention, by reducing a spacing between successive coil windings to
 0.3-0.5 .mu.m, a magnetic path length can be shortened to 50-70% of the
 known thin film magnetic head, and therefore characteristics of the thin
 film magnetic head can be improved to a large extent.
 It should be noted that said electrically conductive material constituting
 the thin film coil may be a copper deposited by a chemical vapor
 deposition. In this case, it is preferable to provide a Ti, TiN or TaN
 film on inner walls of the recesses and to deposit a copper by a chemical
 vapor deposition into a space defined by such a film.
 According to the invention, a method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic
 head comprising
 a first magnetic layer having a pole portion;
 a second magnetic layer having a pole portion which constitutes an air
 bearing surface together with said pole portion of the first magnetic
 layer and being magnetically coupled with said first magnetic layer;
 a gap layer made of a non-magnetic material and being interposed between
 said pole portion of the first magnetic layer and said pole portion of the
 second magnetic layer;
 a thin film coil consisting of one or more thin film coil layers and having
 a portion which is arranged between said first and is supported by an
 insulating material in an electrically isolated manner; and
 a substrate supporting said first and second magnetic layers, gap layer and
 thin film coil;
 wherein a step of forming at least one thin film coil layer comprises the
 steps of:
 a step of forming a first insulating layer to be supported by said
 substrate;
 a step of forming coil-shaped recesses in said first insulating layer such
 that said recesses have a width and a spacing which are equal to a width
 and a spacing of coil windings of the thin film coil to be formed and have
 a depth which is deeper than a height of the coil windings;
 a step of depositing an electrically conductive material within said
 recesses; and
 a step of forming a second insulating layer on said first insulating layer.
 Upon practicing the method of manufacturing the thin film magnetic head
 according to the invention, it is preferable to deposit the electrically
 conductive material within said recesses by a chemical vapor deposition,
 but the electrically conductive material may be deposited by sputtering an
 electrically conductive material and reflowing the deposited material or
 nonelectrolytic plating or electroplating.
 Moreover, it is further preferable to deposit an electrically conductive
 material such that the first insulating layer is covered with the
 conductive material, and then the conductive material layer is polished
 until the surface of the first insulating layer is exposed.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
 FIGS. 9-21 show successive steps of an embodiment of the method of
 manufacturing the thin film magnetic head according to the invention. In
 these figures, A represents a cross sectional view and B illustrates a
 font view. It should be noted that in an actual process for manufacturing
 the thin film magnetic head, since a number of thin film magnetic heads
 are formed in a wafer, an end face of the magnetic head is not exposed,
 but for the sake of explanation, an end face is shown in a front view.
 In the present embodiment, a composite type thin film magnetic head having
 a magnetoresistive type thin film magnetic head and an inductive type thin
 film magnetic head stacked one on the other in this order is to be
 manufactured.
 At first, as shown in FIG. 9, on a substrate 31 made of an non-magnetic and
 electrically insulating AlTiC and having a thickness of several
 millimeters, is deposited an insulating layer 32 made of an alumina having
 a thickness of about 5 .mu.m. Next, as illustrated in FIG. 10, a lower
 shield layer 33 serving a magnetic shield for protecting an MR reproducing
 head from an external magnetic field is deposited to have a thickness of
 2-3 .mu.m, a lower shield gap layer made of an alumina is formed to have a
 thickness of 0.1 .mu.m and a GMR layer 35 constituting a GMR reproducing
 element is formed to have a desired pattern by means of a high precision
 mask alignment, and then an upper shield gap layer having a thickness of
 0.1 .mu.m is formed. In the drawing, the lower and upper shield gap layers
 are denoted as a shield gap layer 34.
 Next, after forming an electrically conductive layer not shown for forming
 an electrical connection to the GMR layer 5, a first magnetic layer 36
 made of a permalloy is formed to have a thickness of 2-3 .mu.m as
 illustrated in FIG. 11.
 Then, as depicted in FIG. 12, on the first magnetic layer 36 is formed a
 silicon oxide layer 37 having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m by sputtering, said
 silicon oxide film constituting a first insulating layer in a later
 process. After that, openings having a desired pattern are formed in a
 photo-resist formed on the silicon oxide layer 37, and the silicon oxide
 layer is subjected to a dry etching process while the photo-resist is used
 as a mask to form coil-shaped recesses 38 having a depth of 2.5-3 .mu.m, a
 width of 1.5-2.5 .mu.m, and a spacing of 0.3-0.5 .mu.m. This dry etching
 process may be a reactive ion etching using an etching gas such as
 BCl.sub.3, Cl.sub.2, CF.sub.4 and SF.sub.4. A technique of forming a fine
 recess in a silicon oxide layer by a dry etching has been well established
 in the semiconductor manufacturing technique.
 Next, a copper layer 39 having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m is deposited at a
 temperature of about 150-200.degree. C. by an organic metal-chemical vapor
 deposition (MO-CVD) using a copper hexafluoacetylacetonato (hfac) and a
 trimethylvinylsilane (tmvs). By using the MO-CVD, the copper layer 39 can
 be uniformly formed within the coil-shaped recesses 38 as well as on the
 silicon oxide layer.
 Next, as shown in FIG. 15, the copper layer 39 is polished by a
 chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) until the surface of the silicon oxide
 layer 37 is exposed to form coil windings 40 of a first thin film coil
 layer. A cross sectional dimension of the coil windings 40 of this first
 thin film coil layer is identical with a cross sectional dimension of the
 recesses 38. The coil windings 40 have a height of 3-4 .mu.m and a width
 of 1.5-2-5 .mu.m, and the thin film coil has a sufficiently low
 resistance. A spacing between successive coil windings 40 is identical
 with a spacing between successive recesses 38 and is equal to 0.3-0.5
 .mu.m, which is about 50-70% of that of the known thin film coil. In this
 manner, according to the invention, a magnetic path length can be
 shortened accordingly.
 Next, as illustrated in FIG. 16, the first insulating layer 37 is subjected
 to a dry etching to remove selectively a portion thereof corresponding to
 the pole portion as well as to form a tapered edge. Then, as shown in FIG.
 17, a write gap layer 41 made of an alumina and having a thickness of
 100-300 nm is formed on an exposed surface of the first magnetic layer 36
 and the flat surfaces of the first insulating layer 37 and coil windings
 of the thin film coil, said surfaces having been flattened by the above
 mentioned CMP. This write gap layer 41 constitutes the second insulating
 layer.
 Next, as depicted in FIG. 18, on the write gap layer 41 is formed a second
 magnetic layer 42 made of a permalloy and having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m
 in accordance with a given pattern, said second magnetic layer
 constituting a pole chip. In a portion of the second magnetic layer 42
 corresponding to the thin film coil formed by the coil windings 40, there
 is formed an opening. After that, an etching process is conducted while a
 pole portion 42a of the second magnetic layer 42 is used as a mask to
 remove portions of the write gap layer 41 and first magnetic layer 36 near
 the pole portion. In this manner, the trim structure is formed.
 Next, a silicon oxide layer 43 having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m is formed on
 a whole surface and then a surface of the silicon oxide layer is flattened
 by CMP and a photo-resist layer is formed on the thus flattened surface.
 Then, a reactive ion etching is performed for the silicon oxide layer 43
 formed in the opening of the second magnetic layer 42 to form coil-shaped
 recesses 44, and the photo-resist layer is removed. This condition is
 shown in FIG. 19. In the present embodiment, the coil-shaped recesses 44
 formed in the silicon oxide layer 43 has the same cross sectional
 dimension as that of the above mentioned coil-shaped recesses 38 formed in
 the silicon oxide layer 37. That is to say, the coil-shaped recesses 44
 has a depth of 3-4 .mu.m, a width of 1.5-2.5 .mu.m and a spacing of
 0.3-0.5 .mu.m. According to the invention, the coil-shaped recesses may
 have different cross sectional dimensions.
 Next, a copper layer having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m is formed by the
 MO-CVD, and then this copper layer is polished by CMP until its surface is
 exposed to form coil windings 45 of a second thin film coil layer as
 illustrated in FIG. 20.
 Then, after forming an insulating layer 46 made of a photo-resist and
 having a thickness of 3-5 .mu.m on the coil windings 45, a third magnetic
 layer 47 made of a permalloy and having a thickness of 3-4 .mu.m is formed
 on the insulating layer, and an overcoat layer 47 made of an alumina is
 formed on the third magnetic layer as shown in FIG. 21, said third
 magnetic layer serving as a top pole. The third magnetic layer 47 is
 brought into contact with the second magnetic layer 42 such that a closed
 magnetic path is formed by the first magnetic layer 36, second magnetic
 layer 42 and third magnetic layer 47.
 FIG. 22 is a schematic plan view showing a magnetic path length L.sub.MI of
 the thin film magnetic head according to the invention and a magnetic path
 length L.sub.MP of the known thin film magnetic head in comparison with
 each other. According to the invention, a width of the coil windings 40
 and 45 of the tin film coil is identical with that of the known thin film
 coil as stated above, but a spacing can be shortened to 0.3-0.5 .mu.m
 while a spacing of the known thin film coil is about 2 .mu.m. Therefore, a
 magnetic path length L.sub.MI can be reduced to about 60% of the known
 magnetic path length L.sub.MP, and therefore it is possible to improve the
 flux rise time, NLTS and over-write characteristics.
 FIGS. 23A, 23B-27A, 27B are cross sectional views and front views showing
 successive steps of a second embodiment of the method of manufacturing the
 thin film magnetic head according to the invention. In the present
 embodiment, steps up to a step of forming the write gap layer after
 forming the coil windings 40 of the first layer of the thin film coil are
 identical with those of the first embodiment.
 In this embodiment, as illustrated in FIG. 23, after forming a photo-resist
 layer 51 on a portion of the write gap layer 41 situating on the coil
 windings 40 of the thin film coil, a seed layer 52 made of a copper and
 having a thickness of 100 nm is formed on a whole surface. The
 photo-resist layer 51 serves to improve the electrical isolation between
 the first layer and the second layer of the thin film coil.
 Next, openings are formed in the photo-resist layer by a photo-lithography
 used in the known thin film manufacturing process, and coil windings 53 of
 a second thin film coil layer is formed within the openings by an
 electroplating. Then, the photo-resist layer is removed as shown in FIG.
 24. As stated above, the coil windings 53 formed in this manner have a
 height of 2-3 .mu.m, a width of 2 .mu.m and a spacing of 2 .mu.m.
 Then, as depicted in FIG. 25, after covering the thin film coil windings 53
 with a photo-resist layer 54, a second magnetic layer 55 is formed to have
 a desired pattern. An etching is carried out by using a pole portion 55a
 of the second magnetic layer 55 as a mask to remove a portion of the write
 gap layer 41 near the pole portion and a thickness of the first magnetic
 layer 36 is partially reduced to constitute the trim structure as
 illustrated in FIG. 26. Next, an overcoat layer 56 made of an alumina is
 formed as shown in FIG. 27.
 In the present embodiment, the coil windings 40 of the first thin film
 layer is formed by the Cu-CVD, and thus a spacing between adjacent coil
 windings can be shortened to 0.3-0.5 -m, but since the coil windings 53 of
 the second thin film coil layer is formed by the electroplating like as
 the known method, a space of these coil windings is wide such as 2-3
 .mu.m. However, the number of the coil windings 40 of the first thin film
 coil layer can be increased, and therefore although the number of the coil
 windings 53 of the second thin film coil layer is small, the magnetic path
 length of the thin film magnetic head can be reduced.
 The present invention is not limited to the above mentioned embodiments,
 but many alternations and modifications may be considered within the scope
 of the invention. For instance, in the above embodiments, there are
 provided two layers in the thin film coil, but one thin film coil layer or
 more than two thin film coil layers may be provided. According to the
 present invention, since the number of coil windings can be increased, it
 is almost unnecessary to provide more than three thin film coil layers.
 Further, in the above embodiments, the thin film coil is formed by the
 Cu-CVD, but according to the invention other metal may be formed by CVD.
 In case of using the Cu-CVD, it is preferable to form a Ti, TiN or TaN
 film on the recesses prior to the formation of the copper layer.
 Furthermore, in the above explained embodiments, the first insulating layer
 in which the recesses are formed is made of a silicon oxide, but according
 to the invention, the first insulating layer may be made of a silicon
 nitride or alumina.
 In the above embodiments, the thin film coil is formed by the MO-CVD, but
 according to the invention, the thin film coil may be formed within the
 recesses by depositing an electrically conductive material by sputtering
 and then by performing the reflow process under a high vacuum condition.
 Moreover, an electrically conductive material may be deposited within the
 recesses by the electroplating or electroless plating. In case of using
 the electroplating, after forming the coil-shaped recesses 38 in the
 silicon oxide layer 37 constituting the first insulating layer as shown in
 FIG. 28, a Ti layer 61 is formed to have a thickness of 100-300 nm and the
 copper layer 39 is formed by the electroplating while the Ti layer is used
 as a seed layer, and then the copper layer is polished by CMP until the
 surface of the silicon oxide layer 37 is exposed to form the coil windings
 40 of the thin film coil as illustrated in FIG. 29. During this CMP
 process, a portion of the Ti layer 61 serving as the seed layer deposited
 on the silicon oxide layer is removed, and therefore adjacent coil
 windings 40 can be isolated effectively. In this manner, it is possible to
 obtain the coil windings 40 formed by the Ti layer 61 applied on the inner
 walls of the coil-shaped recesses 38 and the copper deposited within
 spaces defined by the Ti layer.
 Furthermore, in the above explained embodiments, the magnetoresistive type
 thin film reading magnetic head is formed on the substrate and then the
 inductive type thin film writing magnetic head is provided on the
 magnetoresistive type magnetic head to constitute a normal type composite
 thin film magnetic head. But according to the invention, it is also
 possible to realize a reverse type composite thin film magnetic head by
 reversing the up side down relationship between the magnetoresistive type
 thin film magnetic head and inductive type thin film magnetic head.
 Further, it is not always necessary to constitute the composite type
 magnetic head, but only the inductive type thin film magnetic head may be
 provided on the substrate.
 In the thin film magnetic head according to the invention, since a spacing
 between adjacent coil windings of the thin film coil can be smaller than
 that of the known thin film magnetic head, a magnetic path length can be
 shortened to improve characteristics such as flux rise time, NLTS and over
 write properties. Moreover, when the first insulating layer is made of an
 inorganic insulating material such as silicon oxide, silicon nitride and
 alumina which can be subjected to the fine processing, a spacing between
 successive coil-shaped recesses can be extremely shortened such as 0.3-0.5
 .mu.m. Since a spacing between adjacent coil windings can be shortened,
 the number of coil windings per one thin film coil layer can be increased
 and the NLTS property can be improved.
 Moreover, according to the invention, the retardation of the edge position
 of the photo-resist pattern during the etching for the seed layer can be
 avoided, thus the throat height zero position could never be shifted
 during the manufacturing process. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the
 thin film magnetic head having the throat height which is accurately
 identical with a designed value, and a manufacturing yield can be
 improved.