Magnetoresistive sensor with track following capability

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The present invention is preferable for use in a magnetic head assembly that includes write elements as well as the magnetoresistive read elements.
Since information can be played back but cannot be recorded with a magnetoresistive element, a magnetoresistive playback head such as is shown in FIG.
1 will, in most applications, be combined with a write element.
The gap of the recording element and the magnetoresistive read element should be located as closely together as possible.
The magnetoresistive element of the present invention could therefore be combined with a write element, such as is shown in the U.
S.
Pat.
No.
4,012,781 to Lin and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
The substitution of the magnetoresistive element according to the present invention for the magnetoresistive element of the Lin patent could be undertaken by a person skilled in the art of thin film head manufacturing.
It is therefore not believed to be necessary to completely describe the magnetic head assembly.
It is sufficient for the purposes of this invention that the magnetoresistive element according to the figures and this detailed description will be sufficient to describe the present invention.
Referring to FIG.
1, a magnetic head assembly 10 includes a magnetoresistive (MR) element 20 shown placed on a non-magnetic support 12.
The head 10 includes a write element 11 with a magnetic gap 13 adjacent to the MR element 20 and controlled by a write amplifier 15.
A center-tap lead 14 and two outer leads 16 and 18, connect to the magnetoresistive element 20.
The head 10 is adapted to ride along a magnetic recording track 22 containing data signals and in response to the fields associated with such signals, supply playback signals to a tracking control and playback electronics shown as amplifier 24.
The amplifier 24 processes the playback signals for the recovery of the recorded data as shown by the data line from the amplifier 24.
In addition, the amplifier 24 provides positional tracking of the head 10 to the track 22 through a tracking control (TC) device 26