Construction and performance of a plated-wire memory plane

Construction and performance of a plated-wire memory plane which consists of the plated wires, glass fiber spacers, and word lines enclosed by a C-shaped Permalloy film keeper, are described. The glass fibers serve as spacers and insulators between plated wires, and also reinforce the plane against external stress, such as bending and compression. The plated wires and glass fibers are sandwiched by two word line arrays. They are bonded with a 0.012 mm thick adhesive layer, including a 0.006 mm thick polyester insulator. The C keeper and the narrow gap between plated wires and word lines in this plane allow a highly concentrated driving field and a low leakage field for the adjacent word, thereby giving a wide performance window and good adjacent word disturb characteristics. The memory plane has a capacity of approximately 30 kbits (256 words × 132 bits). Typical data of this plane is as follows: the word lines are arrayed every 1 mm; the plated-wires are arrayed every 0.5 mm; the minimum output voltage is 3 mV (the rise time of the word current is 70 ns); the available word current is 550-1000 mA; and the available digit current is 40-80 mA.