Patent ID: 7836579

Claim:
A method for preventing GMR read heads from electrostatic discharge (ESD) damage during manufacturing processes comprising: providing a row-bar of substantially identical slider mounted transducers, each said transducer being formed on a slider substrate and each said transducer being encapsulated in an overcoating dielectric medium and each said transducer including a GMR read-head, an inductive write-head and protective shields disposed about said read-head and said overcoating encapsulating medium having a surface on which are formed conducting terminal pads including read-head pads providing internal connections to said read-head, write-head pads providing connections to said write-head and a substrate pad providing connection to said substrate; forming balls of electrically conducting thermoplastic resin on said read-head and write-head terminal pads and on said substrate pad, said balls forming conducting paths between said read-head pads, between said read-head pads and said substrate pad and between said write-head pads; curing said balls at a curing temperature for a curing time; lapping said row-bar; slicing said row-bar to form individual slider mounted transducers.