Patent ID: 7394624

Claim:
A bottom-type giant magnetoresistance (GMR) sensor overlaid with a uniform longitudinal bias (LB) stack, the bottom-type GMR sensor comprising: nonmagnetic and ferromagnetic seed layers; an antiferromagnetic transverse pinning layer; a ferromagnetic first pinned layer; a nonmagnetic antiparallel-coupling spacer layer; a ferromagnetic second pinned layer, the nonmagnetic antiparallel-coupling spacer layer being sandwiched between the first and second pinned layers; a nonmagnetic conducting spacer layer; and a ferromagnetic sense layer, the nonmagnetic conducting spacer layer being sandwiched between the ferromagnetic second pinned layer and the ferromagnetic sense layer; the uniform longitudinal bias (LB) stack comprising: an antiferromagnetic longitudinal pinning layer, in direct contact with and exchange-couple to the sense layer; and a nonmagnetic cap layer.