Ramp load slider with trailing edge extenders controlling load wear

In magnetic disc drives, ramp load disc heads contact the disc storage media while the heads are loaded onto the media. shows a schematic of a typical recording head slider . The slider includes a trailing edge and a disc head . shows a picture of the trailing edge corner of the center pad of such a slider after a large number of load and unload cycles . In , the corner has changed in height after it is worn during ramp loading. The corner has worn off at approximately the angle of the static attitude of the slider. The wear is due to the large (relative to flying attitudes) pitch and roll static attitude of typical parts. An apparatus and method is presented for controlling initial load and unload wear on a slider by using a trailing edge extender. A slider for supporting a transducer proximate to a recording medium is disclosed. The slider includes a trailing edge extender positioned on a trailing edge to allow additional controlled wear to occur before a substrate of the slider contacts the recording medium. The trailing edge extender can be positioned at an outer corner on the trailing edge of the slider and at a transducer pad on the trailing edge of the slider. The trailing edge extender can include a depth of the step depth, cavity depth, or air bearing surface level depth. The method includes fabricating a trailing edge extender positioned on a trailing edge to allow additional controlled wear to occur before a substrate of the slider contacts the recording medium.