Importance

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Abstract

A head gimbal assembly (HGA) for use with a magnetic head and disk assembly, and a method for loading the slider of a head gimbal assembly enable the read/write rail of the slider to fly at a desired height. According to one embodiment of the invention, the slider of the HGA has two rails: a read/write rail for data transduction and an inactive rail for balancing the read/write rail. A desired gram loading on the read/write rail of the slider is known from the performance characteristics of the magnetic head and disk assembly. During production of the HGA, the position of the slider with respect to the load arm is varied in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the load arm. A load transducer is used to measure the gram loading on the rails of the slider. The slider is permanently mounted at a position at which the load on the read/write rail falls within a predetermined range about the desired gram loading value. Slider load variations are borne by the inactive rail. The magnitude of the planform areas of the surfaces of the inactive rail and read/write rail adjacent the disk may be varied relative to one another in order to control the roll angle of the slider with respect to the disk. The position of the slider relative to the load arm may also be varied in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the load arm to obtain a desired pitch angle. The principles of the invention may be extended to sliders with more than two rails.

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First Claim