Patent ID: 6927938

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a thin film magnetic head comprising the steps of: (a) forming a track width control portion on a bottom core layer with a predetermined width dimension and a predetermined length from the surface facing a recording medium in the height direction, the track width control portion comprising one of a first combination, a second combination, and a third combination, wherein the first combination is a bottom pole layer, a nonmagnetic gap layer, and a top pole layer, the second combination is the bottom pole layer and the nonmagnetic gap layer, and the third combination is the nonmagnetic gap layer and the top pole layer; (b) forming an insulating base layer on a portion of the bottom core layer, the portion located behind the track width control portion in the height direction; (c) forming a coil layer on the insulating base layer, wherein the coil layer is nearer the bottom core layer than a top surface of the track width control portion; (d) forming at least one insulating layer to cover the track width control portion and the coil layer; (e) planarizing the top surface of the at least one insulating layer, wherein the top surface and an upper surface of the track width control portion are in a reference plane; and (f) forming a top core layer extending from the track width control portion to the at least one insulating layer, wherein step (a) is performed prior to performing step (c).