On the Resolving Time and Flipping Time of Magnetoresistive Flip-Flops

The time constant of the exponential approach to the stable states is shown to be a fair approximation for the flipping time of the "bridge" magnetoresistive flip-flop. This time constant turns out to be at least of the order of milliseconds for the magnetoresistive materials known at present, which is too large. Similar time constants are used as an approximation for the resolving times of a general nonlinear network, in particular networks in which the nonlinear element is a magnetoresistor. It is shown that these time constants are the latent roots of a certain matrix whose elements can readily be calculated from the parameters of the network. The flipping time of the "bridge" magnetoresistive flip-flop is calculated as a function of the energy supplied by the incoming pulse. The calculation is made by the numerical solution of the nonlinear differential equation involved. The results show that for input pulses of conceivable amplitudes the linear time constant is a good measure of the flipping time.