Tape head with facing beams each having a head chip positioned in a recess thereof

A tape head has first and second beams each having a recess in a tape bearing surface thereof, a face where the faces of the beams either face each other or face away from each other. A first chip is positioned in the recess of the first beam, and a second chip is positioned in the recess of the second beam. Each chip has circuitry selected from a group consisting of read elements, write elements, and combinations thereof. A tape bearing surface of each chip is generally aligned with the tape bearing surface of the associated beam. Also, an end of each chip is generally aligned with the face of the associated beam. Where closures are used, this eliminates the need to aligning the closure to skiving edges of the beam.