Event
Special MSE Seminar: Sining Mao
Friday, January 22, 2010
2:00 p.m.
Room 2108 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Bldg.
JoAnne Kagle
jkagle@umd.edu
TMR Recording Heads: Past and Future
Presented by Sining Mao
Western Digital
The rising need in the consumer electronics field for high capacity data storage has created strong demanded continuous increases in areal density. Increased areal density requires both linear and track-density improvements. CPP recording head technology provides advantages due to the narrow spacing of the shields and better side reading. One of the technical challenges in realizing CPP heads is how to increase effective GMR ratio dR/R to achieve enough readback amplitude and signal-to-noise ratio. Today, with large amplitude and improved SNR performance, magnetic tunnel junction, or Tunneling MR (TMR) head design has become a technology choice after the CIP GMR heads. MgO barrier material with giant TMR ratio for more than 100% at low RA of 1~2 ohmcm2 provides more opportunity for extending the TMR recording head applicability for future generations. In this presentation, a historic view of TMR head development in the HDD industry will be given. Fundamental head design, structure, and physics will be reviewed. Recent advancements on TMR head design also will be discussed.
About the Speaker
Dr. Sining Mao is currently Vice President, Device Technology Development, Magnetic Heads Operation, Western Digital, residing in Fremont, Calif. Prior to WD, he was Senior Director of Advanced Transducer Development at Seagate Recording Head Operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he also served as R&D director at Seagate Ireland (Londonderry, NI) from 2004-2005. His research topics cover the advanced nanotechnologies including GMR, TMR and BMR, as well as writers for longitudinal and perpendicular recording. He graduated with bachelors degree from the Department of Physics at Peking University and obtained the doctorate degree from University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Mao has more than 170 scientific papers and fifty conference presentations. He is Senior Member of IEEE and referee for Applied Physics Letter, J. Applied Physics, and IEEE Transaction on Magnetics. He is also member of the IEEE technical committee and also served on the organizing committee for MMM, Intermag, and TMRC. He has been Guest Professor of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academia and Distinguished Researcher of DSI at Singapore. He has given invited talks at MRS, TMRC, PMRC, MMM, Intermag, Diskcon, and many universities around the world on magnetic thin film materials and devices. He also owns 50 US and international issued patents and 10 pending on magnetic thin films and devices.
