US Patent 9025282 Elongated trace tethers for disk drive head suspension flexures

An integrated lead flexure for a disk drive head suspension formed from layers of material including a spring metal layer, a conductive material layer and an insulating material layer between the spring metal and conductive material layers. One embodiment includes a gimbal region having flying traces and one or more elongated tethers extending from the spring metal layer and along a distance of the flying traces that is less than the length of the flying traces. Another embodiment includes a load beam spring region traversing portion having unsupported traces and one or more elongated tethers extending from the spring metal layer and along a distance of the unsupported traces that is less than the length of the unsupported traces.