Patent ID: 7595963

Claim:
A head gimbal assembly (HGA) for a disk drive, the HGA comprising: a slider including a top surface and an air bearing surface that opposes the top surface, a leading side, and a trailing side that opposes the leading side, the slider further including first, second and third electrically conductive pads disposed upon the trailing side, the first electrically conductive pad being disposed between the second and third electrically conductive pads; a load beam; a flexure including: a flexure body portion affixed to the load beam; a tongue portion with the slider being attached to the tongue portion; first and second gimbal arms extending between the flexure body portion and the tongue portion; a metal backing layer; a dielectric layer; first, second, and third conductive traces respectively electrically connected to the first, second, and third electrically conductive pads so that the first conductive trace is electrically connected to the first electrically conductive pad, each conductive trace being disposed upon the dielectric layer with the dielectric layer between each conductive trace and the metal backing layer, the first conductive trace being disposed upon the dielectric layer between the top surface of the slider and the dielectric layer, the second conductive trace being disposed in the tongue portion and extending along the first gimbal arm to the flexure body portion, the third conductive trace being disposed at the tongue portion extending along the second gimbal arm to the flexure body portion, the first conductive trace disposed between the second and third conductive traces in the flexure body portion; and a base plate for mounting the HGA, the base plate attached to the load beam.