Patent ID: 7830638

Claim:
A suspension assembly for a hard disk drive suspension comprising: a flexure assembly comprising: longitudinally extending side rails; a gimbal tongue attached to and supported by the longitudinally extending side rails, the gimbal tongue being supported at one or more gimbal tongue attachment points; and a bridge extending laterally across the flexure assembly and supported directly by the longitudinally extending side rails, the bridge being supported at opposite ends thereof at first and second bridge attachment points, the bridge attachment points being distal of the gimbal tongue attachment points, the bridge being configured to be physically separated from the gimbal tongue and not supported by the gimbal tongue; a head slider mounted to the gimbal tongue, the head slider having a plurality of head slider electrical contacts for carrying data read and write signals; a plurality of signal traces having respective trace bonding pads electrically connected thereto, each of the bonding pads being disposed on the bridge, whereby the bonding pads are directly mechanically supported to prevent excess movement during processing in a direction normal to a plane of the flexure assembly during assembly and are physically separated from the gimbal tongue; and a plurality of electrical bonds electrically connecting the head slider electrical contacts to the trace bonding pads.