Patent ID: 7974045

Claim:
A micro-actuator assembly, comprising: a micro-actuator mount for mechanically coupling to a slider for lateral positioning through at least one piezoelectric device of a read-write head for accessing data on a rotating disk surface in a hard disk drive; wherein said slider includes said read-write head; and a micro-actuator bridge ( 80 B) coupled to said micro-actuator mount ( 80 M) to collectively provide a micro-actuator footprint ( 80 F) merged with a slider footprint ( 90 F) of said slider and a micro-actuator bridge gap ( 80 G) to said slider; wherein for a head gimbal assembly containing said micro-actuator assembly, said head gimbal assembly has a higher pitch and a higher roll stiffness than a micro-ctuator assembly without said micro-actuator bridge gap, and a pitch torque of said head gimbal assembly is reduced in a hard disk drive compared to said micro-actuator assembly with said micro-actuator footprint ( 80 F) unmerged with said slider footprint ( 90 F).