NSF Award
9961412
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop all-metal support electronics that are based on giant magnetoresistance (GMR) for a nanoscale, nonvolatile, solid-state random-access memory. Silicon technology, alone or in combination with GMR memory elements, cannot match either the density or low cost of all-metal memory because of inherent limits on scaling of semiconductors and because of the fewer masking steps required for all-metal technology. Only all-metal solid-state storage (the combination of GMR memory and GMR circuitry) can realize the full potential of magnetoelectronic chips. At the heart of the proposal's general-purpose electronics is a novel multifunctional GMR device called a transpinnor (TM). The research objectives are to develop and demonstrate transpinnor-based circuitry on the all-metal chip. The research will design the GMR elements, model and simulate their coupling on the circuit, fabricate and test GMR based selection and sense circuitry, and design a complete 1 Kbit all-metal magnetic memory chip. The results are anticipated to demonstrate functionality of GMR circuitry on an integrated chip.<br/><br/>The addressable markets for all-metal solid-state chips include not only semiconductor memories such as SRAM, DRAM and Flash, but mechanical storage and general-purpose electronics as well.
