AVS 51st International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Friday Sessions
       Session MI-FrM

Invited Paper MI-FrM3
Processing Challenges in the Magnetic Recording Industry

Friday, November 19, 2004, 9:00 am, Room 304A

Session: Advanced Magnetic Data Storage and Thin Film Processing
Presenter: J.A. Katine, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Correspondent: Click to Email
Following the introduction of the giant magnetoresistive sensor in 1997, the areal density of magnetic storage doubled annually for five years. This doubling meant that the critical dimension of the smallest features on the thin film recording head, the sensor trackwidth and the writer poletip width, decreased by 30 percent per year. Recently, though, there has been a dramatic slowdown in rate of increase for areal recording density, in large part due to the processing challenges associated with scaling the critical features to sub-100 nm dimensions. This talk will present an overview of the processing of magnetic recording heads, emphasizing the key challenges facing the industry. These include lithographic tooling options for printing critical dimensions that will soon be smaller than the smallest features used in IC processing. Of particular interest to the industry is the feasibility of using direct write electron beam lithography for the production of recording heads. Another obstacle to overcome will be developing etching techniques for magnetic materials that do not produce unacceptable damage at the edges of the devices. Advances are also required in developing the thin insulating gap materials with thermal and electrical properties suitable for ultrahigh areal density recording. In addition to processing challenges in the recording head, to reach areal densities approaching 1 Terabit per square inch, it is likely that the magnetic media itself will require lithographic patterning. I will outline the formidable challenges involved in producing economically viable patterned media.