New fabrication technique for magnetic bubble circuits with submicron dimensions

A new technique which permits the fabrication of submicrometer bubble propagation circuits has been described. Straight line patterns and contiguous zigzag patterns are combined with an appropriate registration to form bubble propagation patterns. The straight line pattern width corresponds to the gap width in the Permalloy bubble propagation circuits. By controlling the exposure time in fabricating straight line photoresist patterns, submicrometer pattern gaps are easily obtained using photomasks with 1 μm minimum features. The 4 μm period and 0.5 μm gap width permalloy circuits fabricated using this technique provide promising propagation characteristics for 1 μm bubbles: 60 Oe bias field margin at 60 Oe drive field and 25 Oe minimum propagation drive field.     

The propagation of magnetic bubbles on permalloy disks

A magnetic bubble generator consisting of a Permalloy disk and a current conductor loop has been used recently in a mass memory design utilizing magnetic bubble technology. The bias field range in which the disk can hold the seed bubble is measured in this report as a function of of the rotating field frequency. Above a critical frequency fc, the bias field margins begin to decrease. The dependence of fcon disk size is obtained for disks with diameters from 16 μm up to 43 μm at rotating fields of 20 and 30 Oe. The separation between Permalloy disks and the garnet film is kept at 0.8 μm or 1.6 μm. Results show that at a fixed rotating field, a smaller disk is preferable at higher frequency for a magnetic bubble material with a given mobility. The critical frequency fcobtained is in good agreement with a theoretical calculation using the viscous damping model by Rossol et al. For frequencies below fc, the bias field margin on the disk is equal to that of the propagating channel and circuit failure due to the loss of the generator seed bubble can be eliminated.     

Eight-micron period bubble devices

Magnetic bubble shift register devices of 68 121- and 266 473-bit capacity have been fabricated and tested. The epitaxial garnet bubble films were nominally 1.7 μm thick, supported nominally 1.7-μm diameter bubbles, and had collapse fields of about 260 Oe. The storage area per bit was 64 μm², which was realized with a minimum coded feature dimension of 1 μm and contact photolithography using EBES chrome masters. Initial yields obtained in two experimental batches each of the two chip capacities are discussed. Parametric test results are presented for generator current, transfer current and phase, and rotating field intensity. Nominal values have been established to be 130-mA generate current, 21-mA transfer current, and 60-Oe drive. The detector signals were about half as large as normally obtained from 3.3-μm bubble devices with comparable resistance and conventional design.     

NiFeCo--An alternative to permalloy for bubble domain detection?

The characteristics of bubble domain sensors fabricated from ternary NiFeCo films have been studied and compared with Permalloy film sensors. In 350 Å thick films, the ternary alloy exhibits a magnetoresistance ratio of 3.5 percent in contrast to 2.8 percent for Permalloy films prepared under similar conditions. Sensor sensitivity in functional bubble chips is correspondingly greater, while the sensor noise level is equal to-or lower than-that obtained with the Permalloy detector. Low coercivity and dispersion in NiFeCo films aid in producing an overall improvement in signal-to-noise ratio. The performance of NiFeCo sensors operating in 1-μm bubble ion-implanted contiguous-disk devices is described.     

68 kbit capacity 16 µm-period magnetic bubble memory chip design with 2 µm minimum features

A bubble propagating structure that operates well on a 14 μm to 18 μm propagate period with a nominal 2 μm minimum feature size has been designed. The structure consists of only 1 discrete permalloy feature per circuit period. Sixty-eight kbit-capacity memory chips based on such structures have been designed, built, characterized, packaged and the packages have been characterized. The chip is organized as a set of minor (storage) loops with separate write and read major lines. The bubble manipulating functions, of which the replicate and transfer gates are the most critical, have also been designed with 2 μm minimum features. The design is adequate to provide a 14 Oe bias field margin range with drive fields of about 35 Oe, using a bubble garnet material with approximately 170 Oe free bubble collapse field. Sixty-eight kbit single loop shift register type chips designed using similar propagating structures, however, provide over 20 Oe bias field margin ranges with drive fields of about 35 Oe.     

Complementary permalloy bubble propagation structure

Field-access bubble propagation has been achieved in a novel Permalloy structure made up of a pattern and its complement. The pattern is defined by a step in a nonmagnetic spacer on top of which the Permalloy is deposited leaving the Permalloy in two levels. The two layers act in concert to provide coherently travelling potential wells for bubble propagation. The stepped structure is fabricated using a lift-off technique (4000-6000 Å) of Schott glass. Permalloy (1500-2500 Å) is then deposited by radio frequency sputtering over the entire device area. Devices of 10-μm period and 2- to 3-μm minimum feature were fabricated on 2-μm bubble garnets. A propagation margin >10 percent was obtained for 35-to 50-Oe drive fields.     

High-frequency propagation and failure of asymmetric half-disk field access magnetic bubble device elements

High-frequency propagation characteristics and failure modes in 14-μm period, 1.8-μm gap, asymmetric half-disk field-access device were studied using a high-speed optical sampling technique. Propagation elements as well as normal and hand gun corners and chevron structures were included. The operating bias margin at 1MHz, for a structure that had 1.2 MHz as highest possible frequency, was about half of the margin for frequencies of 200 kHz and below. The phase lag between the bubble leading wall and the instantaneous rotating field direction was nearly 90° as the bubble moved through the center of the element where the lag was the greatest. The peak velocity of the leading wall of 55 m/s and the trailing wall of 46 m/s is attributed to bubble interaction with the Permalloy structure creating a ∼125 Oe in-plane field that greatly increases the free bubble "saturation" velocity.     

Magnetic bubble device processing and pickax circuit design

The processing of Permalioy field-access magnetic bubble devices will be discussed for lead-first, double level circuits emphasizing 5 μm diameter bubble circuits, but with reference to scaling down the process to 2 μm bubble diameter circuits. Device structures will be presented with typical material thicknesses and processes used for each level. A new bubble circuit based on the pickax replicator and the pickax propagation element will be introduced with emphasis on the relaxation of processing constraints that this circuit provides. Also quasi-static propagation margins for several of the key pickax elements will be presented.     

Dynamic behavior of bubble domains at low drive field

Dynamic properties of bubble domains at low drive pulse field are examined by the bubble transport method. Important findings are as follows. 1) The bubble does not move unless the pulse duration exceeds a critical value which depends on the pulse amplitude. 2) A minimum pulse amplitude is also required for the bubble translation which depends on the pulse duration. 3) As the pulse duration goes to infinity, the minimum drive field approaches a constant value which is different from the dynamic coercivity. 4) As soon as the pulse duration exceeds the critical value, the bubble is displaced discontinuously by a finite distance independent of the drive field. All of these properties are adequately explained by a simple phenomenological theory, in which the domain wall is assumed to be connected by springs to pinning sites until the wall is displaced by a finite distance.     

The effect of remanence and coercivity on short wavelength recording

The effect of saturation remanence and coercivity on the short wavelength reproduce signal has been examined. For constant current unbiased sinewave recording on tapes of 4.5μm coating thickness, set to peak on each tape the shortest wavelength (λ=1.2μm), the data can be interpreted in terms of an effective spacing loss with an effective recording depth of 0.6μm or in terms of a loss line evaluation of the major hysteresis loop of the tapes. Within the range of remanence and coercivity under investigation, the reproduce signal can be approximated by MRⁿHc^mwhere n and m are 0.75 and 0.25 at 23.5μm, 0.4 and 0.6 at 5μm, and 0.08 and 0.92 at 1.2μm wavelength respectively, i.e. the influence of coercivity predominates at short wavelengths.     

Gap tolerant bubble propagation circuit

A new bubble propagation pattern for field access devices has been developed which has a period to gap ratio of 8:1. In this pattern of semicircular elements (half-disk) the gaps are situated between essentially parallel poles in contrast to the TI pattern where gaps are located between orthogonal poles. The bubble, therefore, comes under the influence of two strong parallel poles causing it to stretch across the gap. The energy barrier that would normally be encountered thus virtually disppears. Devices of 32, 18, and 10 μm periods have been designed and fabricated. The results show a typical margin of at least 20% of the bias field under normal operating conditions. The operating drive field is relatively low for small bubbles. The minimum drive field for a 10 μm period pattern is only 13 Oe.     

Magnetic bubble device scaling and density limits

Scaling of magnetic bubble devices to smaller bubble sizes and higher density is considered. Drive field requirements, materials requirements, fabrication requirements, current requirements, and detector signal-to-noise ratio are all calculated as a function of bubble size and related to practical limits imposed by bubble materials, fabrication techniques, and electromigration limits. It is concluded that "conventional" bubble devices using Permalloy bars can be made practical with 1-μm bubble domains (storage densitysim6 times 10^{6}bits/cm²). Although it may be possible to extend these Permalloy bar devices to even smaller bubbles, it seems more likely that other bubble devices such as contiguous disk devices or bubble lattice devices will in fact be used for densities greater than 6 × 10⁶bits/cm².     

Optimum design considerations for dual conductor bubble devices

A design for dual conductor, current-access bubble devices with 8-μm periods has been optimized with a numerical calculation method for bubble motion in a propagating magnetic field, generated around hole patterns in conductor layers. Magnetic bias field distributions are calculated for an oval hole chain in the conductor layers. Bubble motion equations are obtained with analytical field distribution functions approximating the calculated field distributions. Minimum drive current density Jminfor normal bubble propagation is determined by a solution to the equations. The hole shape has been optimized by the minimization of the drive power Pmin, the product of Jminand conductor resistance, which is calculated from current distributions around the hole pattern. Optimum layer thickness have also been obtained for 8-μm period bubble devices. Both registration tolerance between the two conductor layers and bubble skew effects have been studied semiquantitatively on the basis of the equations of motion. The numerical calculation method developed here is found to be a highly effective means to optimize pattern design for smaller period devices.     

Stripe-domain dynamics in bubble-domain circuits

It is widely known that bubble domains can exist when the bias field is between the elliptic instability (runout) field Heand the bubble collapse field Hbc. Values for Heand Hbcwere calculated by Thiele. It is not widely recognized that long stripe domains can also exist in the bottom 20% of this range. Stripes are stable up to the "stripe contraction" field, Hsc, which is about 0.02 M/μ0above Hefor thickness over intrinsic length,h/l, values from 4 to 10. (Hbcis about 0.10 M/μ0above He.) Values for Hscwere calculated by Kooy and Enz of Philips Research Labs. in 1960, although the importance of their result to bubble-domain devices was not apparent at the time. The velocity of the domain tip during stripout and contraction such as occurs during domain detection or transfer is important for calculating maximum circuit speeds. This is given byV = cG (H-H_{sc}), whereHis the field (bias field plus local field from currents or Permalloy elements),Gis the wall mobility, andcis a constant approximately equal to 0.5.     

Narrow track readout with magnetic garnet film

A novel magneto-optic readout head, which utilizes the modulation of width of straight domains in a garnet film in response to the fringing field from the recording medium, was evaluated from the viewpoint of narrow track readout. In a static transfer experiment with a garnet film having a domain width of 2.25 μm, a definite transfer to the garnet film with track widths of 3 μm or less was confirmed. An expression for the modulation degree of the domain width was derived, and its predictions agreed well with the experimental results. In the dynamic readout experiment, a carrier-to-noise ratio of 50 dB was obtained for a trackwidth of 4 μm and a wavelength of 10 μm. The cross-talk was -30 dB when the track-to-track spacing and track width were 10 μm and 5 μm, respectively. From these results the feasibility of narrow track readout based on this head was demonstrated. The readout performance, including the decrease of readable track width, the wavelength and crosstalk, can be greatly improved if a garnet film, having a domain width narrower than that used in this experiment is used together with a high-density recording medium.     

New ion-implantation method for 4-µm period bubble device

It is well-known that bubble propagation margins for ion-implanted bubble devices depend strongly on ion-implantation conditions. A new ion-implantation method is reported that can significantly improve bubble propagation margins for minor loops with 4 × 4 μm bit cell size. The implantation was done through a Mo thin film layer so that the lattice strain and the anisotropy field change would be more uniform through the depth of the implanted layer. With this method, minor loops can be formed by hydrogen single implantation. Consequently simplification of the implantation process is achieved.     

Effect of conductor crossings on propagation margins

The effects of conductor delineation technique on magnetic bubble propagation across the conductor edge are described. Propagation margins are obtained for bubble circulation around 18-μm diameter Permalloy discs which cross four edges of an Al-Cu feature. Specifically investigated are isotropic wet etching, anisottopic wet etching to achieve a uniform taper, ion beam milling, and metal lift-off to provide a planar structure. Margins are obtained at ± 40°C, with the most significant degradation observed at the lower temperature. Permalloy magnetic continuity in the crossings can be inferred from hysteresis loop measurements of a Permalloy sheet deposited over a grating pattern formed by the above processing techniques. Although the least anisotropic loops are invariably obtained with smoothly tapered Al-Cu edges under the Permalloy, propagation margins are not maximized with such structures, but rather favor a planar crossing. The results suggest that although patterned stress is still an important concern in functional operation, other geometric effects can be more significant. In particular, poor magnetic step coverage as inferred from loop measurements leads to spurious pole formation from the drive field, while even with adequate step coverage, static bias-field distortions can result because of the component of the field along the step.     

Some characteristics of ion-implanted bubble chips

The relations between the position of charged walls and the bubble motion around propagation circuits are discussed. Long walls which extend between adjacent propagation loops are revealed by the Bitter technique. The examination of the domain structure in the implanted layer shows the existence of a magnetic gradient which is a function of the distance from the propagation circuits. The switching of magnetization in particular directions of the in-plane field is reported and correlated with the bubble movement. An additional easy axis is observed along the circuits due to shape anisotropy. Propagation margins are very similar to those obtained with permalloy circuits. Fabrication technology as well as design of 16 μm period circuits is discussed. Nucleation and transfer have been achieved with currents in the range of 50 mA to 200 mA. Phase margins of about a quarter of a period are found, and bias field margins fall between 10 and 15 Oe.     

Contiguous-disk bubble domain devices

Contiguous-disk bubble devices are an approach to higher bit density through the use of coarse overlay patterns in manipulating small bubbles to relax device lithography requirements. As a first step towards such an objective, a fully processed chip using ion-implanted devices has been tested, showing the feasibility of all required memory functions with 5-μm bubbles and 25-μm period overlay patterns. A critique of permalloy versus implanted contiguous-disk devices is made, pointing out their basic difference in magnetization reversal processes and explaining the superiority of the latter over the former in achieving a good edge affinity of bubbles. The requirements for a good implanted device are reviewed, including the selection of garnet material parameters (K1, λ111), of implantation parameters (ion energy and dosage) and of device pattern geometry (thickness and shape of implanted layer). An understanding of these requirements has made it possible to demonstrate 1-μm bubble propagation in several contiguous-disk type circuits with 4.5-μm periods, yielding an areal density of over 3 × 10⁷bit/in²made by conventional photolithography.     

Bubble domains in remanence state in monocrystalline, epitaxial ferrite layers/MgMnFe/3O4

Magnetic domain structure was studied in monocrystalline, epitaxial ferrite layers of spinel structure for MgMn-ferrites using magnetic colloid technique. The layers, 6 micrometers thick, were obtained by CVD on monocrystalline MgO substrates. Layers obtained at 1550°K exhibit growth- and stress-induced anisotropy. The domain structure was studied in the demagnetized and remanence states, and on applying a static magnetic field of up to 2 KOe perpendicularly to the layer. In the remanence state, bubble domains 3+4 micrometers in diameter form a hexagonal lattice. In the demagnetized state, after AC-demagnetization, the bubbles are 1 micrometers in diameter and form a regular lattice. Both lattices are stable in magnetic fields of less than 100 Oe. The bubble mobility, measured by the ferromagnetic resonance method, is about 250 cm/Oe s.