Disclosed herein is a hard disk drive slider having an extended three-dimensional air-bearing surface (ABS). The slider has an ABS and a back surface opposite the ABS, where at least a portion of the back surface defines a plane (i.e., if the back surface is substantially flat, the back surface itself defines the plane). Defined herein is an ABS function, which describes the characteristics of a portion of the ABS in a two-dimensional plane made by taking a cross-section of the slider perpendicular to the plane defined by the at least a portion of the back surface. The cross-section of the slider taken perpendicular to the plane has an ABS function that is a multi-valued function, which is defined herein as a relation for which, for at least one possible input value along the selected axis in the plane, the relation evaluates to two or more distinct nonzero values.

A method is provided for manufacturing a magneto-resistive device, comprising the steps of: extracting at least one subset of bars from at least one bar section of a wafer; obtaining a magnetic performance of the at least one subset of the bars; determining an angle based on the magnetic performance; and processing remaining bars from the at least one bar section of the wafer based on the determined angle.

Disclosed herein are processes to manufacture sliders having extended three-dimensional air-bearing surfaces and non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing machine-executable instructions to cause at least one processor to perform the processes. A disclosed method of manufacturing a slider for use in a hard disk drive comprises removing a first portion of material from a wafer, the first portion of material comprising substrate, and, using an additive fabrication technique, forming at least a portion of a feature of the slider in a first location formerly occupied by at least some of the first portion of material. The additive fabrication technique may comprise three-dimensional printing, stereo lithography, fused deposition modeling, selective laser sintering, or multi jet modeling. Also disclosed are sliders manufactured using the disclosed methods of manufacture and disk drives comprising such sliders.

Disclosed herein are processes to manufacture sliders having extended three-dimensional air-bearing surfaces and non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing machine-executable instructions to cause at least one processor to perform the processes. A disclosed method of manufacturing a slider for use in a hard disk drive comprises removing a first portion of material from a wafer, the first portion of material comprising substrate, and, using an additive fabrication technique, forming at least a portion of a feature of the slider in a first location formerly occupied by at least some of the first portion of material. The additive fabrication technique may comprise three-dimensional printing, stereo lithography, fused deposition modeling, selective laser sintering, or multi jet modeling. Also disclosed are sliders manufactured using the disclosed methods of manufacture and disk drives comprising such sliders.

Disclosed herein is a hard disk drive slider having an extended three-dimensional air-bearing surface (ABS). The slider has an ABS and a back surface opposite the ABS, where at least a portion of the back surface defines a plane (i.e., if the back surface is substantially flat, the back surface itself defines the plane). Defined herein is an ABS function, which describes the characteristics of a portion of the ABS in a two-dimensional plane made by taking a cross-section of the slider perpendicular to the plane defined by the at least a portion of the back surface. The cross-section of the slider taken perpendicular to the plane has an ABS function that is a multi-valued function, which is defined herein as a relation for which, for at least one possible input value along the selected axis in the plane, the relation evaluates to two or more distinct nonzero values.

Disclosed herein are hard disk drive sliders having one or more tunnels between the leading-edge surface of the slider and the air-bearing surface (ABS) that may be used to control the pitch and/or fly height of the slider. A slider comprises a leading-edge surface, an ABS, and a tunnel having an entry area at the leading-edge surface and an exit area at the ABS, the tunnel for directing gas impinging on the entry area through the slider and out the exit area toward a surface of a hard disk. The tunnel may be a convergent tunnel. The tunnel may include two or more branches.

Disclosed herein are hard disk drive sliders having one or more tunnels between the leading-edge surface of the slider and the air-bearing surface (ABS) that may be used to control the pitch and/or fly height of the slider. A slider comprises a leading-edge surface, an ABS, and a tunnel having an entry area at the leading-edge surface and an exit area at the ABS, the tunnel for directing gas impinging on the entry area through the slider and out the exit area toward a surface of a hard disk. The tunnel may be a convergent tunnel. The tunnel may include two or more branches.

An assembly includes a carrier device having proximal and distal ends. The carrier device includes a workpiece platform along the proximal end. The workpiece platform supports one or more slider bars. The carrier device attaches to a lapping machine. An adaptive component, including at least one spring, has a first portion that couples to the carrier device and a second portion that couples to a grinding-slicing machine.

A method of manufacturing a magnetic read-write head, including the steps of presenting a row bar to a processing location, the row bar including an air bearing surface, at least one read-write head, at least one electronic lapping guide, and at least one trigger device, wherein each electronic lapping guide is positioned at a different distance from the air bearing surface than each trigger device, and wherein the read-write head and at least one of the trigger devices include a multi-layer stack of materials; lapping the air bearing surface while measuring the electrical resistance of at least one electronic lapping guide and at least one trigger device until the resistance measurement of the trigger device provides an open circuit reading, and measuring an offset resistance value of the at least one electronic lapping guide concurrently with the measurement of the open circuit reading by the trigger device.

Described are methods for processing microelectronic device substrates by a lapping step, e.g., a final lapping step, wherein the step includes the use of an elastomeric pressure-sensitive adhesive to secure the microelectronic device substrate to a carrier that holds the substrate to a surface of the carrier during the lapping step, and wherein the pressure-sensitive adhesive can be a non-polysilicone based adhesive having mechanical properties that include a tan delta that is below about 0.2.