MEMS memory elements - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

MEMS memory elements

Richard Carley, R. T. El-Sayed, David Guillou, Fernando Alfaro, Gary K. Fedder, S. Schlosser, D. Nagle, G. Ganger, and Jim Bain
Conference Paper, Proceedings of Non-Volatile Memory Technology Symposium (NVMTS '01), November, 2001

Abstract

This paper presents a design example that illustrates the potential of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to perform the mechanical positioning required for addressing stored data and to enable an entirely new mechanism for reading and writing magnetic data. Specifically, MEMS sensors and actuators can be used to achieve active servo control of the separation between magnetic probe tips and a media surface with sub-nanometer accuracy. This allows mechanical position to be used to selectively write magnetic marks in a continuous thin-film magnetic media. In addition, MEMS sensors can be used to measure the separation between a magnetic probe tip and the media with a noise floor of roughly 22 picometers, allowing them to be used as position sensors in a magnetic force microscope (MFM) style data detection system.

BibTeX

@conference{Carley-2001-8355,
author = {Richard Carley and R. T. El-Sayed and David Guillou and Fernando Alfaro and Gary K. Fedder and S. Schlosser and D. Nagle and G. Ganger and Jim Bain},
title = {MEMS memory elements},
booktitle = {Proceedings of Non-Volatile Memory Technology Symposium (NVMTS '01)},
year = {2001},
month = {November},
}