Properties of 1.4×2.8 μm2 active area M-R elements

Densely packed magnetoresistive memory cells with active areas of 1.4×2.8 μm² have been studied experimentally and compared to larger 2.0×12 μm² cells. The experimental results show that the smaller cells, although having smaller output voltages (0.3 mV), have about the same statistical distributions for critical parameters as the larger cells. Using the current nominal 1.2 μm lithography prototype process, which adds one extra mask to the semiconductor processing, cells with an area of 12.6 μm² are achieved. By adding another extra mask, the area can be reduced to 5.6 μm²