NSF Award
9660937
*** 96-60937 Everitt This Phase I Small Business Innovation Research project will develop a new material for giant magnetoresistive random access memory (GMRAM). Funding will be used for materials research and development, as well as fabrication of prototype arrays of GMRAM cells. The memory cells will operate in a manner similar to memories that employ anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) material, although the proposed material will have much higher signal due to the giant magnetoresistive (GMR) effect. Prior research by this proposer has identified problems with using standard GMR sandwich material for use in the AMR memory mode. GMRAM bits fabricated from standard GMR material have low write thresholds and fail upon repeated cycling and disturbs. The proposed novel material will overcome these limitations, and should result in very stable, robust memory cells. The simple cell architecture and fast read and write times should enable this type of memory to compete with commercial nonvolatile memories, as well as personal computer main memories. GMRAM technology has the potential to be of major commercial significance in the future as a replacement for other nonvolatile memory technologies, and may be expected to extend to main memories in personal computers. The potential market size is estimated to be quite large. This work will help to ensure continued U.S. leadership at the cutting edge of advanced magnetic memory research and development. ***
