Magnetic Processors - Computing's New Future?

metalcoat writes "For the first time researchers have created a working prototype of a radical new chip design based on magnetism instead of electrical transistors. As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore's Law, a group of electrical engineers at the University of Notre Dame has fabricated a chip that uses nanoscale magnetic "islands" to juggle the ones and zeroes of binary code. Wolfgang Perod and his colleagues turned to the process of magnetic patterning (.pdf) to produce a new chip that uses arrays of separate magnetic domains. Each island maintains its own magnetic field. Because the chip has no wires, its device density and processing power may eventually be much higher than transistor-based devices. And it won't be nearly as power-hungry, which will translate to less heat emission and a cooler future for portable hardware like laptops."

Comments

Sounds good

[Peregr1n]

This sounds like it has possibilities, especially as it'll have very low heat emissions. Plus, presumably, some of the speed limitations will be removed as (in a very basic sense) a magnetic signal travels so much faster than an electical signal. And I especially like the idea from the article that it retains data when the power switches off - true instant on computers at last.

My only reservation is that magnetic memory doesn't seem that reliable in the long term - I've had to throw out a lot of flash based memory after a few years, whereas I've never had a processor fail spontaneously (discounting heat transfer problems, naturally - I can't deny I've had many go up in smoke).