Abstract: A method for controlling the formation of the trailing shield gap during perpendicular head fabrication and head formed thereby are disclosed. The in-situ trailing shield gap deposition process removes the pre-sputter process that can damage the write pole material. Further, a seed pre-layer is formed on top of the trailing shield gap to absorb any non-uniformity of the trailing shield gap and to control issues resulting from the pre-sputter process originating from the trailing shield seed deposition.

Abstract: In accordance with the present invention, an interleaved bi-directional magnetic tape head is provided in which the read element, write element, and servo element are formed on a common substrate. Each element has a contact pad area electrically associated withit, with each contact pad area located in a plane common to all contact pad areas. That is, the contact pad areas are planarized to each other. As a result of such planarization, two gold conduction layers, required in the prior art, are reduced to one layer. Further, the total number of mask layers is two less than the prior art, with a concomitant reduction in device fabrication time. Additionally, the unit cell size is reduced by about one-third.