A flexure includes a metal substrate whose front end supports a slider and a wiring part having a base insulating layer and a conductor layer formed on the base insulating layer. The wiring part includes a normal wiring part that is on the metal substrate and an aerial wiring part that is on a space separated from the metal substrate. The base insulating layer of the aerial wiring part is formed to be thinner than that of the normal wiring part. This configuration reduces a rigidity contribution ratio of the wiring part.

A first insulating layer is formed on a support substrate. The first insulating layer includes a first portion and a second portion. The second portion has a thickness smaller than that of the first portion. A ground layer having electric conductivity higher than that of the support substrate is formed on the second portion of the first insulating layer. The ground layer is electrically connected to the support substrate. A second insulating layer is formed on the first insulating layer to cover the ground layer. A write wiring trace is formed on the second insulating layer to overlap with the first portion and the second portion of the first insulating layer.

Provided is a wiring thin plate capable of suppressing deterioration of an electric characteristic and variation in thickness of an aerial wiring portion while advancing reduction of rigidity of the aerial wiring portion. The wiring thin plate includes an aerial wiring portion including wiring traces and passing over an airspace, aerial base layers provided at the respective wiring traces in the aerial wiring portion and being apart from each other, and an aerial cover layer provided in the aerial wiring portion and spanning from the wiring traces of the aerial wiring portion through the aerial base layers to interspaces between adjacent aerial base layers of said aerial base layers.

A gimbal assembly includes a flex circuit with a first end extending along a loadbeam and second end having bond pads configured to be electrically coupled to a slider. The gimbal assembly includes a metallic layer with a fixed portion fixably attached to the loadbeam and a movable portion fixably attachable to the slider. The movable portion has at least one extension arm coupled to and providing support to the second end of the flex circuit. First and second linear actuators are coupled between the fixed portion and the movable portion. The first and second linear actuators cause a rotation of the slider in response to an electric signal.

A gimbal assembly of a single or dual stage actuator is provided with gold at a tongue/dimple interface where a dimple of a supporting loadbeam contacts a tongue on the gimbal assembly. Using gold at the tongue/dimple interface greatly reduces the amount of wear particles formed during assembly and operation of the microactuator. The tongue may include a gold coating on the tongue at the tongue/dimple interface, or the tongue may have a hole etched in a stainless steel layer at the tongue/dimple interface to expose a gold layer disposed below the stainless steel layer. The tongue portion of the tongue/dimple interface may also be formed from a gold-coated copper pad with a polymer coating over the gold.

According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a recording medium, a first magnetic head, a first wiring member, a flexible printed circuit board, and a wire. The first wiring member is electrically connected to the first magnetic head. The flexible printed circuit board includes a surface, a first fixed part fixed to a first component, and a second fixed part fixed to a second component, and is electrically connected to the first magnetic head through the first wiring member. The wire on the flexible printed circuit board extends along the surface such that the wire extends between the first fixed part and the second fixed part in a direction intersecting at an angle of larger than 45 degrees and not larger than 90 degrees with an extending direction of a virtual shortest line that connects the first fixed part to the second fixed part along the surface.

A disk-drive suspension includes a load beam, a flexure laid on top of the load beam, a first terminal provided on the flexure, and a first bump arranged on a top surface of the first terminal. The first terminal includes a narrow part having a first width in a first direction and including a center of the first terminal, and a wide part having a second width in the first direction greater than the first width. The wide part and the narrow part are arranged in a second direction intersecting the first direction. The first bump has, at the center, a first height from a bottom surface of the first terminal. The first height is greater than the first width.

A slider of a magnetic recording head comprises a media-facing surface, an upper surface opposing the media-facing surface, a leading edge, and a trailing edge. A plurality of electrical bond pads is disposed in a spaced-apart relationship on the trailing edge of the slider. An interconnect interposer is connected to the trailing edge of the slider. The interposer comprises a back side comprising a plurality of electrical contacts in contact with the plurality of bond pads on the trailing edge of the slider. The interposer also comprises a front side comprising a plurality of electrical interposer pads corresponding in number to the plurality of electrical contacts on the back side. The interposer further comprises a plurality of conductors each of which electrically couples one of the plurality of electrical contacts on the back side with one of the plurality of interposer pads on the front side.

A read/write head has a set of components that at least include: at least one clearance actuator; at least one read transducer configured to read from a magnetic recording medium; and at least one write transducer configured to write to the magnetic recording medium. A switch network is coupled to the set of components and configured to, in response to a control signal, couple a selected sub-combination of the components to a common set of signal lines. The coupling of the selected sub-combination facilitates operation in a selected mode of the read/write head.

According to one embodiment, a suspension assembly includes a support plate, a wiring member on the support plate, and a magnetic head mounted on the wiring member. The magnetic head includes a head slider and connection pads provided at an outflow end of the head slider and electrically connected to the wiring lines. The wiring member includes a head installation region in which the magnetic head is mounted, and an etched region which is at least partly located in the head installation region and is opposed to an end portion of the head slider at the inflow end thereof to form a gap between the end portion and the etched region.