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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."
Since magnetic monopoles dont exist, you have to use magnetic dipoles or higher order moments. this translates in to macoscopic structures. It's hard to see how this could beat monopole electrons in size or group velocity. As for power consumption, it's true that magnetism can have low queiscent power consumption because of it's hysterises making it non-volatile. But you pay aprice for this when you have to switch it's state. on the other hand the ideal transistor consumes no power when it is not switching states. If you got rid of the hysteresis in magnetism to make it faster and lower power then it too will become volatile like electronics.
I can see how this could create dense active bulk storage, such as was done long ago with magnetic bubble memory. But I'm skeptical about a pure magnetic logic system beating electronics.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I didn't see anything in the article about the magnets being faster than transistors. Yes, being able to cram more onto a chip will make a faster processor but are the magnetic "islands" faster in and of themselves?
As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore's Law
The submitter speaks of Moore's law as if it were some actual law governing the physics of silicon based integrated circuits. His "law" was nothing more than an observation regarding the time it took the industry to pack more transistors into a given space. It makes no assertions regarding maximum transistor density, heat dissipation, or any of the other physical limitations chip manufacturers keep overcoming.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
This supervisor poured much time and effort into his team, investigating various concepts of magnetic computation. Then the integrated circuit came along and turned him into a ruined man.
So have we finally come full-circle now, back to magnetic computation? Call me conservative but I don't think it will fare any better this time around.
If "metalcoat", "The Winner", submitted the article ONE MINUTE before you did, then, they would have been placed it in the queue and rejeced ALL similar subsequent submissions. In other words, we shall refer to you as "The Loser". Get used to it. Roland P. submits about 400 articles a day. You are lucky if you beat him to the punch one time in six months.
I bet one of two things happens. Either someone tries to patent it 5 years after being on the market, and perhaps succeeds since by then patent agents will only have 8 seconds to decide if an idea is patentable, or somebody currently has an obscure patent of a vague rough idea that they never produced that sounds slightly similar to this, which doesn't show up on searches, and they'll keep quiet about it until this thing makes billions and then say "Hey, you owe me money!".
My point was that while we associate magnetism with low power persistent memory and electronics with fast, high power memory, you are going to have to shed the desirable properties of magnetism to achieve speed. At that point you may find it as leaky and power hungry as electronics. Conversely, if you are willing to make electronics slower you can make more ideal, less leaky transistors. I was not saying that transistors in use have ideal properties, but that extrapolating current magnetic goodness to it's future applications may make it less ideal too.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore's Law
Actually, I don't think "Moore's Law" has a limit. An off-the-cuff comment that the number of transistors in a processor will double every 18 months doesn't have a limit. It just keeps getting higher and higher.
Posted from the wireless couch.