Disk drive head suspension tail with stiffened edge alignment features

摘要

A head gimbal assembly for a disk drive includes a flexure tail terminal region having flexure bond pads in electrical communication with the head. Each of the flexure bond pads includes a widened region of a corresponding one of a plurality of electrical traces in a conductive layer, and a discontinuous bond pad backing island in a structural layer that overlaps the widened region. The flexure tail terminal region also includes a plurality of discontinuous edge stiffener islands in the structural layer that do not overlap the widened region of any flexure bond pad, and that are disposed no more than 50 microns from one of the two opposing longitudinal outer edges of the flexure tail terminal region. At least one of the plurality of discontinuous bond pad backing islands is disposed no more than 50 microns from one of the two opposing longitudinal outer edges.

主权项

1. A disk drive comprising:
a disk drive base; a disk rotatably mounted to the disk drive base; an actuator rotatably mounted to the disk drive base, the actuator including at least one actuator arm and a flexible printed circuit (FPC) that includes a plurality of electrically conductive FPC bond pads; and at least one head gimbal assembly attached to the at least one actuator arm, the at least one head gimbal assembly comprising
a head for reading and writing data on the disk; anda suspension assembly that comprises
a load beam, anda laminated flexure that comprises a structural layer, a conductive layer, and a dielectric layer between the structural layer and the conductive layer, the laminated flexure including a tongue portion that connects to the head and a flexure tail that extends to the plurality of FPC bond pads; wherein the flexure tail includes a flexure tail terminal region that overlaps the FPC, the flexure tail terminal region being bounded by first and second longitudinal outer edges, the flexure tail terminal region including a plurality of flexure bond pads in electrical communication with the head, each of the plurality of flexure bond pads being aligned with a corresponding one of the plurality of FPC bond pads, each of the plurality of flexure bond pads including
a widened region of a corresponding one of a plurality of electrical traces in the conductive layer; andone of a plurality of discontinuous bond pad backing islands in the structural layer that overlaps the widened region; wherein the flexure tail terminal region also includes a plurality of discontinuous edge stiffener islands in the structural layer that do not overlap the widened region of any flexure bond pad; and wherein each of the plurality of discontinuous edge stiffener islands is disposed no more than 50 microns from the first longitudinal outer edge or the second longitudinal outer edge, and at least one of the plurality of discontinuous bond pad backing islands is disposed no more than 50 microns from the first longitudinal outer edge or the second longitudinal outer edge.