JPS5846786B2 - Cylindrical domain storage device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention comprises a microphone loop, a travel path in which an input section and an output section are arranged, and a cylindrical magnetic domain element having means for controlling the transfer of information between the microphone loop and the travel path. The present invention relates to storage devices used, and in particular to cylindrical domain storage devices with means to address microphone loop deficiencies.

The structure of the cylindrical magnetic domain storage element using the major microphone loop method as shown in FIG. 5cientific
American), Vol. 224, No. 6, pp. 78 to 90 (Reference 1), especially p. 90.

In the figure, the solid line with an arrow represents the movement path of the cylindrical magnetic domain (magnetic domain).

Information is stored in a plurality of microphone loops 111-116.

Microphone loops 111-116 are memory gates 141
.about.146 to a major loop 117 in which an input and an output are arranged.

The input section includes a magnetic domain generator 113L magnetic domain eraser 132 that generates a magnetic domain every cycle of the rotating magnetic field, and a write gate 14.
7, an erasing section consisting of a magnetic domain eraser 133, and an erasing gate 148, and an output section consisting of a detecting section consisting of a magnetic domain detector 134.

Please refer to the above-mentioned document 1 for a detailed explanation of the read/write operations.

In the following description, the cylindrical magnetic domain element having the configuration shown in FIG. 1 will be regarded as one unit of the cylindrical magnetic domain element.

In storage devices using cylindrical magnetic domain storage elements (cylindrical magnetic domain elements), the price of the cylindrical magnetic domain elements accounts for a large proportion of the overall price, so improving the yield of cylindrical magnetic domain elements will lead to lower prices of storage devices. Connect.

What determines the yield of a memory element are defects in the magnetic single crystal that holds the cylindrical magnetic domain and defects in the soft magnetic material or conductor provided to move the cylindrical magnetic domain.

When a large number of cylindrical magnetic domain elements are produced that do not operate at all due to defects or have defective microphone loops with narrow operating margins, if such cylindrical magnetic domain elements are not incorporated into the device, the cylindrical magnetic domain element Yields decrease and the price of storage devices increases.

On the other hand, if there is a defective microphone loop, but the major loop is a cylindrical magnetic domain element with no defect, if this is incorporated into the storage device and the defective microphone loop is not used, the cylindrical magnetic domain element The yield will improve, so
The cost of storage devices can be reduced.

In this case, based on information indicating whether a defect exists in the minor loop between and within the cylindrical magnetic domain element, that is, defective minor loop position information (defect position information), write information is written so as not to use the defective minor loop. It is necessary to control the arrangement of the signals corresponding to the information and the signals corresponding to the read information.

If the cylindrical domain element is treated as an integral part of the bias magnetic field device, the cylindrical domain element can be regarded as a nonvolatile memory element.

By taking advantage of this feature, the cylindrical magnetic domain element can be used as a storage element with replaceable media.

When a cylindrical magnetic domain element having a defective minor loop is used as a medium-exchangeable storage element, the correspondence between the cylindrical magnetic domain element and defect position information must be reliably managed.

However, if this correspondence is stored in an external storage circuit, there is a risk that this correspondence will be disturbed.

Furthermore, it is troublesome to read defect position information from a storage circuit and load it into the storage device each time a cylindrical magnetic domain element is installed in the storage device.

Regardless of whether or not the cylindrical domain element is used as a storage element with replaceable media, the existence of a memory circuit for storing defect position information for each unit of the cylindrical domain element composed of major, minor, and loop elements is essential for storage. This resulted in an increase in the price of equipment.

A first object of the present invention is to obtain a memory device in which a memory element having a defective minor loop can be incorporated without increasing the price of the memory device.

A second object of the present invention is to facilitate and ensure the management of information regarding defective minor loops in a storage device in which media can be exchanged.

Next, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows a state in which defective minor loop position information is stored in a cylindrical magnetic domain element of the major minor loop type.

Unlike the cylindrical domain element shown in FIG. 1, the input/output section is omitted in the cylindrical domain element shown in FIG. 2, and the memory gate is simplified and shown in solid lines.

Although 14 storage information minor loops are required, 16 storage information minor loops 4-0 to 4-15 are arranged to allow the existence of two defective minor loops.

The minor loop 4-16 is a timing minor loop that stores one cylindrical magnetic domain.

Minor loops 4-17 to 4-20 are minor loops for storing defect position information.

It is assumed that the unit of information transfer between each minor loop and major loop 1 is 2 bits.

As for the information on the magnetic domain position of interest, it is assumed that 1'' is represented by a black circle and O''' is represented by a white circle.

The only cylindrical magnetic domain stored in the minor loop 4-16 exists at each magnetic domain position of the minor loops 4-0 to 4-20, for example, based on when it exists at the magnetic domain position PT. The address of the information is defined.

Note that here, information existing at two magnetic domain positions, for example, P2 and Pl, is assumed to belong to one address.

Here, minor loop 4-3 and minor loop 4-1
Assume that 0 is a defective minor loop.

Since there are 16 minor loops for storage information, defect position information is represented by 4 bits, and in this case, 0011
．． It becomes 1010.

Each of the two pieces of defect position information represented by 4 bits is stored at the respective addresses of minor loops 4-17 and 4-18, and 4-19 and 4-20.

That is, the lower bit 11 of the defect position information 0011 is repeatedly stored at each address of the minor loop 4-17, and the upper bit 00 is repeatedly stored at each address of the minor loop 4-18.

The lower bit 10 of the defect position information 1010 is repeatedly stored at each address of the minor loop 4-19, and the upper bit 10
is repeatedly stored at each address of the minor loop 4-20.

Writing defect position information to minor loops 4-17 to 4-20 is performed by writing defect position information to minor loops 4-17 to 4-20, 4-0.
Write information 1100010100 at each address from ~4-15
This is achieved by writing 0...00.

This writing may be performed outside the storage device, or may be performed within the storage device.

The defect location information is read from the minor loops 4-17 to 420 as follows.

In order to read the information stored in the designated addresses of the storage information minor loops 4-0 to 4-15, the information is transferred to the major loop 1 and converted into a signal at the output section.・・・・・・・・・×
Reading information of × is obtained.

The second to fifth information 1100 of this information becomes the first defect position information, and the sixth to ninth information 010
1 becomes the second defect position information.

Here, T is the information read from the timing minor loop 4-16 and is generally O.

In addition, XXX......XX is read information at a designated address from the storage information minor loops 4-0 to 415.

× is O or 1.

When reading/writing is performed by specifying an arbitrary address in this manner, defect position information can be read before the information belonging to that address is transferred to the detector.

Similarly, before writing, the defect position information can be read before the information to be written at that address is input from the writing section.

Since the defect position information of the selected cylindrical magnetic domain element can be read every time an arbitrary address is specified and the operation is performed, a register or memory for storing the defect position information is unnecessary.

In Fig. 2, when there is one defect minor loop, the other defect position information is set to 1111, and the defect minor loop is set to 1111.
If the loop is not fully heated, the defect position information is 111.
0 and 1111.

By storing defect position information in the minor loop as shown in Figure 2, it becomes possible to incorporate even a defective cylindrical magnetic domain element into a storage device. There must be no other defects.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a storage device according to the present invention.

The memory stack 401 stores one or more cylindrical domain elements including defective minor loops.

Peripheral circuits connected to each component of the cylindrical magnetic domain element include a write gate drive circuit 402 and an erase gate drive circuit 4.
03, memory gate drive circuit 404, sense amplifier 4
05 is provided.

Further, a bias magnetic field device 406 supplies a bias magnetic field to make the cylindrical magnetic domain exist stably, and a rotating magnetic field device 407 supplies a rotating magnetic field to move the cylindrical magnetic domain.
is provided.

These circuits and devices are controlled by control circuit 408.

For convenience, address information supplied to the storage device, control information such as information specifying reading/writing, input information, and output information supplied from the storage device to an external circuit are controlled by the control circuit 4.
08.

The operation of the control circuit 408 when reading and writing defective minor loop position information from a major minor loop type cylindrical magnetic domain element will be explained with reference to FIG.

It is assumed here that the defect position information is stored in the cylindrical magnetic domain element as shown in FIG.

The circuit shown in FIG. 4 is a circuit included in the control circuit 408.

The terminal 501 is connected to the sense amplifier 405 shown in FIG.
A logic level signal is supplied from the output terminal of the circuit.

A signal 510 that is at the 1111T level is applied to the terminal 502 during eight periods in which the defect position information transferred from the minor loop to the major loop together with the storage information passes through the magnetic domain detector.

While the "°1" signal is applied to terminal 502, defect location information is input to an 8-bit shift register 504 through an AND gate 508.

Defect location information, ie, 0011 and 1010, is sent to shift register 504 and supplied from terminal 505 to a control section in control circuit 408 that controls the arrangement of read and write signal sequences.

Since the signal 511 obtained by inverting the signal from the terminal 502 by the inverter 506 is input to one side of the AND gate 507, the information transferred from the terminal 508 to the major loop except for the defect position information is sent from the terminal 508. information, i.e. minor loops 4-0, 4-1,...
......, information from 4-15 is obtained.

During normal read operation, the arrangement of read signals obtained from terminal 508 is controlled based on the defect location information obtained from terminal 505, resulting in a continuous read signal that does not include information from the defective minor loop. .

On the other hand, during a normal write operation, the arrangement of write signals is controlled based on the defect position information obtained from the terminal 505 so as not to use defective minor loops.

Write gate 1 drive circuit 402 operates based on this array of controlled write signals.

These detailed operations are shown in Japanese Patent Application No. 48-55883.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a configuration diagram of a conventional major-minor-loop type cylindrical magnetic domain element, Figure 2 is a diagram of the storage state of the minor loop that stores defective minor loop position information, and Figure 3
The figure is a block diagram of the storage device of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a part of the control circuit shown in the block diagram of FIG. 3. In the figure, 1 is the major loop, 4-0 to 4-15
is a minor loop for storage information, and 4-17 to 4-20 are minor loops for storing defective minor loop position information.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A cylindrical magnetic domain memory having a plurality of microphone loops of equal length, a moving path in which an input section and an output section are arranged, and means for controlling the transfer of information between the microphone loop and the moving path. A storage device using a defective microphone loop repeatedly stores defective microphone loop position information and includes a defective position information microphone loop located close to the output section, and a control means for controlling reading and writing of the defective microphone loop position information. A cylindrical magnetic domain storage device comprising: