The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 09, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 19, 2003
Youfeng Zheng, San Jose, CA (US);
Kochan Ju, Monte Sereno, CA (US);
Otto Voegeli, Morgan Hill, CA (US);
Youfeng Zheng, San Jose, CA (US);
Kochan Ju, Monte Sereno, CA (US);
Otto Voegeli, Morgan Hill, CA (US);
Headway Technologies, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A method of fabricating a current-perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensor stack, wherein the parasitic resistance of the high-resistance antiferromagnetic (AFM) pinning layer is effectively reduced by enlarging its surface area and forming between it and the remainder of the sensor stack an equal area, contiguous, thin, highly conductive ferromagnetic layer, the current channeling (CCL) layer. The magnetic properties and increased current carrying capacity of the CCL allows the AFM pinning layer to effectively couple to the pinned layer while eliminating the effect of its high resistance on the sensor sensitivity as measured by the GMR ratio, ΔR/R.