Eric Leroy Granstrom

Floating gate EEPROM as EOS indicators during wafer-level GMR processing

Potentially damaging charging currents and voltages in wafer-level giant magentoresistance (GMR) plasma processing tools have been measured using floating gate EEPROM (FG-EEPROM) monitor wafers. Although FG-EEPROM monitors have been used as semiconductor process monitors, this report demonstrates their use in ESD-sensitive GMR head production. Use of FG-EEPROM monitors allows quantification of plasma-induced EOS voltages and currents, and can be used in optimizing process tool EOS performance, as is demonstrated in a case study on an ion mill.

Degradation in magnetoresistive sensors by short pulse zapping

In this paper, we discuss about the degradation in magnetoresistive properties by short pulse zapping has been investigated for both spin valve (SV) and tunnelling giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads of about 80 Gb/spl bsol/in/sup 2/ areal density. Simulated ESD transients with pulse from 0.1 nsec to 10 nsec were applied to both spin valve and tunneling GMR devices, and GMR properties of the devices were measure.