Mustafa Pinarbasi CTO, Spin Transfer Technologies

Spin Transfer Technologies, Inc., (STT), developer of breakthrough MRAM technology, announced that Mustafa Pinarbasi, PhD has been appointed as the company’s CTO and SVP of magnetics technology.

 Dr. Pinarbasi will lead the magnetic research and development team at STT.

Pinarbasi joins STT from SoloPower, a thin-film solar company, where he served as CTO. He spent the first 18 years of his career at IBM and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) (formerly IBM, now part of Western Digital) as a technologist in magnetic materials and thin films. At IBM, he pioneered the adoption of ion beam sputtering deposition technology, a revolutionary conductor and hard magnet process, by the magnetic head industry. He was recognized with the IBM Corporate Award in 2000 for his work on developing the GMR sensors that resulted in the introduction of the first GMR-based hard disk drives. In that same year he was named an IBM Distinguished Engineer for his contributions to the thin film magnetic field.

"We are delighted that Dr. Pinarbasi, a pioneer and innovator in magnetic thin films, will lead the core technology R&D effort at Spin Transfer Technologies," said CEO Barry Hoberman. "Dr. Pinarbasi’s experience and track record of leading advanced magnetic technology teams and turning early stage technologies into world-class, high-volume products will be critical as the company progresses into product development."

Spin Transfer Technologies’ Orthogonal Spin Transfer magnetoresistive random access memory, or OST-MRAM, is an innovation in the field of spin-transfer-based MRAM devices. It enables lower manufactured device cost, faster switching times, reduced power operation, and scalability to smaller lithographic dimensions. The company opened its Silicon Valley office in Fremont, CA, in October 2012, following the closing of $36 million in private investment financing led by private investment company Allied Minds and Invesco. Spin Transfer Technologies is a subsidiary of Boston-based Allied Minds.

"The market potential for OST-MRAM is large and I am very excited to be part of the extremely talented team at Spin Transfer Technologies," said Pinarbasi. "The company has made significant progress and I’m looking forward to building on this success to further advance this innovative technology."

Prior to joining STT, Pinarbasi led the technology effort at SoloPower, where he built a comprehensive technology team that developed roll-to-roll thin film photovoltaic deposition processes and equipment, and spearheaded the industry’s first flexible and light weight CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium di-Selenide)-based solar modules that are certified to both US and European standards. Prior to that, he spent five years at Hitachi GST, where he led the development of TMR read head processing used in hard disk drive products.

He is an inventor with over 177 US patents and 25 pending applications in thin film magnetic materials and processing, spin valve sensors, magnetic tunnel junctions, nanostructures and photovoltaic cells. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 scientific publications in thin film materials, magnetic multilayer structures, processing, tooling, product development and reliability.

During his career, he has been the recipient of awards including the Gold Patent award at Hitachi GST and Outstanding Technical Achievement and Outstanding Innovation awards at IBM.

Pinarbasi holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.