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Recent progress in the research on interlayer exchange coupling, focusing on the effect of the magnetic layer, is reviewed. Several theoretical works have shown that the exchange coupling does not just involve an interaction localized at the interfaces, but the electronic properties of the sandwich as a whole. The important prediction that the strength of the exchange coupling should oscillate as a function of the magnetic layer thickness has been confirmed recently for the Co/Cu(100) and the Fe/Cr(100) system. The oscillation periods are strongly believed to be related to wave vectors that span extremal parts of the spin-resolved Fermi surfaces of the ferromagnets.