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.

Abstract: A process for producing air bearing sliders for thin film magnetic heads, one at a time from a strip of material having the thin film heads aligned in a column. The thin film heads are aligned within the column such that the slider processing is performed in a direction substantially parallel to the orientation of the column. In one embodiment, a mechanical backing, fixture or substrate provides structural rigidity to the strip of material having the sliders while undergoing mechanical processing, such as lapping.