Patent ID: 8018684

Claim:
A method for preventing TMR MRR drop of a slider, comprising the steps of: (a) positioning a row bar constructed by a plurality of sliders on a tray, each slider incorporating a TMR element; (b) loading the tray into a processing chamber and evacuating the processing chamber to a predetermined pressure; (c) introducing a processing gas containing oxygen gas into the processing chamber, and ionizing the processing gas, thus forming a first etching means; (d) exposing the sliders to the first etching means such that an oxide layer is formed on a surface of the TMR element; (e) evacuating the processing chamber, introducing argon gas into the processing chamber, and then ionizing the argon gas, thus forming a second etching means; and (f) exposing the sliders to the second etching means such that the oxide layer is etched to get a reduced thickness.