DESIGN, FABRICATION, AND WAFER LEVEL TESTING OF (NIFE CU)(XN) DUAL STRIPE GMR SENSORS/

In this paper, a new head design, the dual stripe GMR (DS-GMR) is prop osed. It consists of two self biased GMR sensors of thickness t, carry ing opposite sense currents I, separated by on oxide layer with thickn ess g. Modeling of the head shows that outputs of 1 mV/mu m trackwidth , with a D-50 of 300 kfci and PW50 congruent to 0.1 mu m can be achiev ed, which make it suitable for very high density operation. In order t o test this DS-GMR sensor, (NiFe/Cu)(xn) GMR multilayers were develope d with MR=12% and sensitivity of 0.25%/Oe. DS-GMR sensors were fabrica ted and tested at wafer level with bottom and top GMR of 4 to 5% for 5 mu m trackwidths and a gap g=0.2 mu m.