CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Review of Storage Technologies 1 1.2 Evaluation of Different Storage Technologies 8 CHAPTER 2. THE MAGNETO-RESISTIVE ELEMENT 12 2.1 Magneto-Resistance 12 2.2 Magneto-Resistive Material Used 12 2.3 Structure and Fabrication of the Magneto-Resistive Element 13 2.4 The Magnetic Field in the Element 15 2.5 Read and Write in the Magneto-Resistive Element 17 CHAPTER 3. THE MAGNETO-RESISTIVE MEMORY 22 3.1 The Block Diagram 22 3.2 The Magneto-Resistive Element Array 22 CHAPTER 4. PROBLEMS IN SENSING 28 4.1 Change in Element Resistance due to Heating 28 4.2 Mismatch Between the Sense Lines and the Dummy line due 28 to Process Variations 4.3 Noise 29 iii 4.4 Differences in Heating Time Constants of Elements 30 CHAPTER 5. OVERVIEW OF THE SENSING SCHEME 32 CHAPTER 6. BALANCED SENSING 35 6.1 Problems of the Old Scheme 35 6.2 New Scheme 37 CHAPTER 7. AUTO-ZERO 40 7.1 Principle of Operation 7.2 Signal to Noise Ratio Calculation for Auto-Zero 7.3 Single Stage Auto-Zlero Scheme 7.4 Two Stage Auto-Zero Scheme CHAPTER 8. DIFFERENTL\L TO SINGLE CONVERTER AND BANDWIDTH LIMITER 8.1 Differential to Single Converter 53 8.2 Bandwidth Limiter 53 CHAPTER 9. SAMPLE AND HOLD 57 9.1 Sample and Compare Method 57 9.2 Capacitor Construction 61 CHAPTER 10. SPECIFICATIONS OF THE IMBIT MAGNETO-63 RESISTIVE MEMORY AND THE SENSING SCHEME CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION 72