Head gimbal assembly with flexure tail having bent alignment tab feature
View Patent ↗A novel method and device to align a flexure tail of a head gimbal assembly (HGA) to a flex cable of a head stack assembly (HSA) is disclosed and claimed. An alignment pin is passed through a first alignment hole in the flex cable, and a second alignment hole in the flexure tail. The second alignment hole is disposed in a region of the flexure tail that lies in a flexure tail plane that is approximately parallel to the flex cable plane adjacent the first alignment hole. A novel head gimbal assembly (HGA) has a flexure tail that includes a first bend line. The flexure tail is bent out-of-plane about the first bend line to create a residual bend angle in the range 10° to 80°. The first alignment tab is abutted against a first guide surface of an alignment fixture.
1. A head gimbal assembly (HGA), for use with a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a flex cable, the HGA comprising:
a load beam;
a laminated flexure attached to the load beam; and
a head attached to the laminated flexure;
the laminated flexure including a flexure tail that includes a plurality of conductive traces;
the flexure tail including a terminal region where the plurality of conductive traces terminates at a corresponding plurality of electrical terminals that are configured to be electrically connected to the flex cable;
the terminal region including the plurality of electrical terminals and defining a terminal region plane that also includes the plurality of electrical terminals; and
the terminal region also including a first alignment tab that is bent out of the terminal region plane about a first bend line by a first bend angle in the range 10° to 80°.
2. The HGA of claim 1 wherein the first bend line comprises a first plurality of co-linear etched perforations.
3. The HGA of claim 1 wherein the flexure tail further comprises an alignment hole.
4. The HGA of claim 1 wherein the first alignment tab comprises a triangular-shaped corner of the flexure tail that is demarked by the first bend line.
5. The HGA of claim 1 wherein the terminal region further includes a second alignment tab that is bent out of the terminal region plane about a second bend line by a second bend angle that is substantially equal to the first bend angle.
6. The HGA of claim 5 wherein the second bend line comprises a second plurality of co-linear etched perforations.
7. The HGA of claim 5 wherein the second alignment tab comprises a triangular-shaped corner of the flexure tail that is demarked by the second bend line.