Inventors:
Hamid Balamane - Portola Valley CA, US
Patrick M. Braganca - San Jose CA, US
Jordan A. Katine - Mountain View CA, US
Jui-Lung Li - San Jose CA, US
Yang Li - San Jose CA, US
Kanaiyalal C. Patel - Fremont CA, US
Neil L. Robertson - Palo Alto CA, US
Samuel W. Yuan - Saratoga CA, US
Assignee:
HGST Netherlands B.V. - Amsterdam
International Classification:
B44C 1/22
US Classification:
216 22, 216 62, 216 67, 2960301, 2960314
Abstract:
A method for manufacturing a magnetic read sensor at very narrow track widths. The method uses an amorphous carbon mask layer to pattern the sensor by ion milling, rather than a mask constructed of a material such as photoresist or DURIMIDE® which can bend over during ion milling at very narrow track widths. By using the amorphous carbon layer as the masking layer, the trackwidth can be very small, while avoiding this bending over of the mask that has been experienced with prior art methods. In addition, the track-width can be further reduced by using a reactive ion etching to further reduce the width of the amorphous carbon mask prior to patterning the sensor. The method also allows extraneous portions of the side insulation layer and hard bias layer to be removed above the sensor by a light CMP process.