Contact start-stop studies with silicon planer head sliders against thin-film disks

Abstract

The horizontal heads can be mass produced inexpensively by using integrated circuit (IC) technology. All horizontal head-slider process steps can be done at the full wafer level, eliminating the precision lapping of rows (which is very labor intensive) presently required in making conventional thin-film heads (CTFH). Cross section of a head slider produced using IC technology referred to as silicon planer head (SPH) slider, is shown in Fig. 1. This head slider (head and ABS) is fabricated on a single-crystal (100) silicon wafer using semiconductor technology. The silicon wafer is coated with SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> coating applied by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) which ranges in thickness from 5 to 6 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μm</sup> . The SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> film is very dense and provide good friction and wear performance. In this paper, we present contact-start-stop (CSS) data and magnetic performance data on SPH sliders against thin-film disks. The CSS data is compared with that for CTFH sliders made of Al <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> Ti-C material.