Process for manufacturing a silicon chip with an integrated magnetoresistive head mounted on a slider

摘要

A process of making an MR head having its MR stripe protected from electro-static discharge (ESD) on a slider, such as titanium carbide. The MR stripe is protected by a plurality of silicon integrated circuit devices which conduct ESD-induced current from the MR stripe to larger components in the MR head such as the first and second shield layers and the coil layer. In a preferred embodiment the integrated circuit devices and interconnects are constructed in a single crystal silicon chip. The silicon chip is fixedly mounted to a trailing edge of the slider and the MR head is mounted on a trailing edge of the silicon chip adjacent the integrated circuit devices. The invention includes a method of mass producing sliders by combining thin film technology for making MR heads with integrated circuit technology for making integrated circuit devices. These technologies are combined at the row level to ultimate completion of individual sliders. A silicon wafer, including the integrated circuit devices, is sliced into a plurality of silicon bars, each bar including a row of circuit devices. A plurality of rows and columns of MR heads are constructed on a ceramic wafer. The ceramic wafer is then also sliced into bars, each bar including a row of MR heads. Each silicon bar is then bonded to a ceramic bar, forming composite bars of MR heads electrically connected to the circuit devices. Each composite bar is then further processed and diced into individual sliders, each slider carrying an MR head which is ESD protected.