Patent ID: 8407882

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a thin film magnetic head, the method comprising: forming, on a substrate, a plurality of magnetic head portions, each magnetic head portion having a magnetoresistive element and at least one resistance detection element for measuring an amount of polishing; slicing the substrate to form at least one row bar; polishing an air bearing surface of the at least one row bar; forming rails on the polished air bearing surface; and cutting the at least one row bar to separate each of the plurality of magnetic head portions, wherein the polishing the air bearing surface of the at least one row bar further includes: measuring a resistance of each of the plurality of resistance detection elements and a resistance of each magnetoresistive element; calculating an offset value between the resistance of each of the plurality of detection elements and the resistance of each of the magnetoresistive elements from the measured resistance of each of the plurality of resistance detection elements and the measured resistance of each magnetoresistive element; correcting a predetermined final resistance of the resistance detection element using the calculated offset value; and terminating the polishing when the resistance of the resistance detection element reaches the corrected final resistance.