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Technical
Seminar (Joint Meeting with CSU Department of Physics)
Distinguished Lecturer Series |
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Micro Fabrication
Techniques for Magnetic Information Storage Devices:
From
Bubbles to Thin Film Recording Heads to Nano Magnetic Structures |
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DATE/TIME
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- Monday, November 7, 2005 (4:00pm to
5:00pm) Refreshments served at 3:30pm.
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PLACE
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DIRECTIONS
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To
Colorado State University
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To
Hammond Auditorium
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Hammond
Auditorium (120 Engineering) is located on the First Floor of the
Engineering Building, just east of the ECE Department Office (same
floor)
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Park north of
Engineering Building -- free after 4pm.
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COST
Free. Pizza, cookies &
drinks will be provided. |
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ABSTRACT |
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This lecture examines magnetic device
structures from the perspective of thin film processing. Techniques for
forming magnetic device structure minimum features will be compared with
semiconductor processing. Future storage density growth in both magnetic
memories and magnetic recording will be projected using semiconductor
roadmaps. The “nano” characteristics (thickness and length scale) of
next generation magnetic thin film heads and magnetic memory devices
will be compared with solid state semiconductor designs. |
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In the last 25 years, the bit cell size for
storage products incorporating magnetic device structures decreased from
156 µm˛ bit cells (IBM 3390 Disk Drive) to 0.007 µm˛ (Hitachi Travelstar
5K100 Mobile Disk Drive). For the same period, the bit cell size in
non-volatile memory products incorporating magnetic device structures
decreased from 625 um˛ (TI 100 Kbit Bubble Memory) to 1.6 um˛ (Motorola
4 Mbit MRAM). These 103 to 105 increases in
information storage densities resulted from increased understanding in
the physics of magnetic phenomena, from advances in material science and
engineering for magnetic thin films, from development of new magnetic
modeling techniques, and from dramatic improvements in the capability to
fabricate magnetic device structures with smaller minimum features. |
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The manufacture of cost effective magnetic
device based information storage products requires high yield processing
technologies for the magnetic transducer or memory element in these
products. Such processing technologies are now producing devices with
120 nm features (80 GBit/in˛ storage densities) and these same
processing technologies are extendable to 30 nm features (1TBit/in˛
storage densities). The lecture will conclude with discussions on nano-scale
processing challenges. |
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DR. ROBERT
FONTANA (Hitachi Global
Storage
Technologies, San Jose, CA)
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Dr. Robert E. Fontana, Jr.
received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, in 1969, 1971, and 1975, respectively. He
is a Research Staff Member within the recording head processing function
of the San Jose Research Center, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST),
San Jose, CA. His technical activities have concentrated on developing
and improving thin-film processing techniques for fabricating magnetic
device structures, first at Texas Instruments from 1975 to 1981 with
magnetic bubbles, then from 1981 to 2002 at IBM with thin-film heads,
and from 2003 to the present at Hitachi GST with novel flux detecting
sensors and nanostructure fabrication with e-beam lithography. During
his career, he has transferred processing methodologies for magnetic
bubbles, magnetoresistive thin-film heads, spin-valve giant
magnetoresistive thin-film heads, and tunnel-valve thin-film heads from
research concepts to manufacturing realizations. |
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He has authored 37 papers on magnetic devices
and processes and has 55 patents in thin-film magnetic structures. Dr.
Fontana was named an IEEE Fellow in 1996 and he received the IEEE Cledo
Brunetti Award for excellence in the art of electronic miniaturization
in 2000. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in
2002 for his contributions in magnetic device processing. He has served
as President of the IEEE Magnetics Society (2001, 2002), as General
Chair of the 1996 Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Conference, as
General Chair of the 2004 Joint International Magnetics Conference and
Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Conference, and is serving as an NAE
member on the National Research Council’s (NRC) Board on Manufacturing
and Engineering Design (2003–2005). |
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PHOTOS
Courtesy of Bob Barnes |
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