Mustafa Pinarbasi

Mustafa Pinarbasi is a pioneer, innovator and technical leader in thin film technology, magnetic materials and spintronic devices. Before joining Spin Memory (previously Spin Transfer Technologies) in 2013, Dr. Pinarbasi was a CTO and SVP of Technology Development at SoloPower, Advanced Technology Department Manager at Hitachi GST and Distinguished Engineer at IBM. He spent the first 18 years of his career at IBM and HGST (formerly IBM, now part of Western Digital) as a leading technologist in magnetic materials, thin films and read head processing. At IBM, his accomplishments include the development of the giant magneto-resistance sensor that was used in the first GMR based hard disk drives in the world. This marked the first use of spintronic device for mass production. He also pioneered the adoption of ion beam sputtering technology into the read head production by the magnetic head industry. During the course of his tenure at IBM, he developed many innovative thin film processes and magnetic structures (AMR and GMR) and transferred them to production resulting in many industry leading HDD products. He led the development of tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) read head processing at Hitachi GST. He also led the development and introduction of the industry leading ultra-contiguous junction technology in the read head processing utilizing chemical mechanical polishing. At SoloPower, he led the development of CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-diselenide) based flexible and light weight solar panels and received World’s first product certification for both in Europe and the U.S. Dr. Pinarbasi holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an inventor with over 200 U.S. patents, has authored or co-authored over 35 scientific publications and has received numerous industry awards.