Nanoscale Magnetic Processors

Gorgeous Si writes "Researchers in the University of Durham Nanoscale Magnetics Group are working on magnetic microchips. These new chips "could be 40,000x better than conventional chips while using 1,000,000 times less energy." I assume this actually means 40,000 times denser than conventional methods allow. Also worth lookig at for the pretty pictures. "

Comments

Re:40,000 times denser?

[dmatos]

Well, not exactly. You see, transistor lengths are now on the order of 0.1um. However, they also mention that the wires are 0.1um thick. Note that the wires on any silicon process often have to be wider than the polysilicon gates, so there is a size improvement here.

However, with no information other than the pics on the website...

They have two wires coming together in a junction, which they claim performs a logic operation (probably an OR, but I'm just guessing). In a CMOS process, this would take no less than four transistors, and here it takes a wire junction. This looks like it could be the biggest space saver of the technology.