Robert E Fontana is an engineer, physicist, and author who is noted for his contributions in the areas of

magnetic recording Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ...

and

data storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are con ...

hard disk drives A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

(HDD) and on digital

tape recorders An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

.IEEE Xplore author profile: Robert E. Fontana
/ref> His work has concentrated on developing thin film processing techniques for nano-fabrication of magnetic devices including

Giant Magnetoresistance Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) is a quantum mechanics, quantum mechanical magnetoresistance effect observed in multilayers composed of alternating ferromagnetic and non-magnetic conductive layers. The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Alb ...

read heads now used universally in magnetic recording. Much of his career was with

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

in San Jose, California. He is a

Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

and a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

Background and education

Fontana grew up in

Champaign, Illinois Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the List of municipalities in Illinois, tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in ...

. He received a Bachelor's, a Master's, and a Ph.D. degrees all from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) Department of

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1969, 1971, and 1975, respectively. Fontana completed his Ph.D. on the optical and magnetic properties of thin films under the direction of Professor David J. Epstein.

Career

Fontana joined

Texas instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

, in 1975 to work on magnetic

bubble memory Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as ''bubbles'' or ''domains'', each storing one bit of data. The material is arrange ...

devices. He had been originally introduced to magnetic bubble memory in 1970 in an IEEE lecture by Andrew Eschenfelder of IBM. He was encouraged in this work by Dennis Bus who was also a visiting scientist at MIT and by Dean Toombs, the VP in charge of bubbles at TI In 1981, Fontana joined th
IBM Almaden Research Center
in San Jose, California, to work on thin film magnetic recording heads. He made significant contributions in the development of processing of both inductive write heads and three generations of magnetoresistive read heads. These included Anisotropic

Magnetoresistance Magnetoresistance is the tendency of a material (often ferromagnetic) to change the value of its electrical resistance in an externally-applied magnetic field. There are a variety of effects that can be called magnetoresistance. Some occur in bulk ...

(AMR) heads,

(GMR) heads. and

Tunnel magnetoresistance Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) is a magnetoresistance, magnetoresistive effect that occurs in a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which is a component consisting of two ferromagnets separated by a thin Insulator (electrical), insulator. If the insula ...

(TMR) heads. Fontana's colleagues and collaborators included Ta Lin Hsu, Ching Tsang, Christopher Bajorek
Heiner Sussner
Prakash Kasiraj, Bob Scranton
Rick Dill
From 2003 to 2007, Fontana worked for Hitachi GST (a result of

Hitachi () is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1910 and headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company is active in various industries, including digital systems, power and renewable ener ...

's purchase of IBM's disk-drive division). His work at Hitachi GST at that time focussed on nano structure e-beam fabrication and on novel flux detecting sensors including all-metal CPP GMR sensors that scale well to very small device sizes. In 2008, Fontana re-joined the IBM Almaden Research Center to work on heads for magnetic tape recording. In particular he contributed to the development and implementation of TMR read heads suitable for the harsh tape recording environment. In addition, Fontana published several papers with S. Hetzler and G. Decad examining the global market and technology outlook for data storage technologies in general comparing solid-state, optical, hard disk drive, and tape. During his career, Fontana played an important role in several technical societies including the

and the National Research Council. In particular, he played an influential role with th
IEEE Magnetics Society
encouraged by Denis Mee, Mark Kryder, and Dave Thompson. Fontana served on the 'MagSoc' Administrative Committee and in various roles supporting IEEE conferences. For example, Fontana was Conference Chair for the joint MMM/Intermag conference in 2004. In 2001 and 2002, he served as president of the IEEE Magnetics Society and was formally recognized for his long-standing contributions to the Society in 2017. Fontana was a Consulting Professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Materials Science and Engineering from 2006 to 2011 Fontana retired from IBM in July 2021. He lives in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

Awards and recognition

Fontana has been recognized internationally and received multiple awards for his contributions to magnetic recording technology and his leadership in the engineering community: *Fellow

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

, 1996 "for development of novel processes for magnetic devices, most notably magneto-resistive thin film heads" *

IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award The IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award is an award is presented for outstanding contributions to nanotechnology and miniaturization in the electronics arts. It may be presented to an individual or a team of up to three. The award was established in 1975 b ...

, 2000. This is a technical field award from IEEE for "outstanding contributions to nanotechnology and technologies for microsystem miniaturization". Fontana's citation reads: "for contributions to micro fabrication techniques for the manufacture of thin film and giant magnetoresistive heads used in hard disk drives" *Member

2002 "For contributions to microfabrication techniques for the manufacture of thin-film storage devices" *IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer, 2005"Distinguished Lecturers For 2005", IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter, Volume 44, No. 4, p. 9, October 2005
/ref> "Micro-Fabrication Techniques for Magnetic Information Storage Devices: From Bubbles to Thin-Film Recording Heads to Nanomagnetic Structures" *IEEE Magnetics Society Achievement Award, 2005, the highest award offered by the Magnetics Society"Magnetics Society Achievement Award: acceptance speech", IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter, Volume 44, No. 4, p. 16, October 2005
/ref> *IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Service Award, 2017 "for establishing the structure and enhancing the international impact of major technical conferences sponsored by the IEEE Magnetics Society"

Patents and publications

Fontana is the author or coauthor of 141 US. patents as well as 61 publications in scientific and engineering journals. The majority of these are in the area of thin film processing applied to nanometer-scale magnetic transducers for magnetic data storage in hard disk drives and digital tape recorders. Several more recent publications address the status and outlook comparing solid-state, optical, HDD and tape storage technologies

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana, Robert 1947 births People from Champaign, Illinois Living people American physicists 21st-century American inventors American electrical engineers Fellows of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering