A study of ESD sensitivities of bottom-synthetic recording heads

This paper summarizes the behaviors of bottom-synthetic spin-valve recording heads in the spin-stand magnetic test and quasi-static test when the heads were subjected to simulated human-body model events. Magnetic test includes the parametric, bit-error-rate and micro-track profile tests. It was demonstrated that the ESD sensitivity is dependent on the structural volume. The single peak of micro-track profile changed to double or triple peaks, and the bit-error rate degraded only when the ESD energy was sufficiently large. Compared with all other parameters, the peak-to-peak amplitude in quasi-static test and the track-average-amplitude in magnetic test are the most sensitive to ESD events