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18th Century Pigment to Revolutionize Chip Design?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the paint-me-green-and-call-me-cooler dept.

Scarlet X writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered a possible nonvolatile magnetic semiconductor and are investigating its use for 'spintronics,' an emerging technology that is concerned with manipulating and controlling the charge, flow and magnetism of electrons. The possibilities for the material 'cobalt green,' a paint developed by American Revolution era artists, as a spintronics material is exciting. Should the magnetic properties of the paint at room-temperature prove able to reliably control the wild spinning of excited electrons in a processor, not only could the size of processors reduce substantially, but the constant limiting factor, how to keep things cool, could disappear."

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Room temperature != operational temperature. by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I'm sure spintronics circuits would have their own way of performing calculations, I can't imagine energy wouldn't be expended in the process.

    If energy is expended, then the temperature of the component will rise. If the temperature rises, it'll be likely to require cooling. (Especially as more energy gets expended with designs capable of higher computation loads.)

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    1. Re:Room temperature != operational temperature. by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but suppose 1GHz of computation on a classic device produces 1W of waste and on a spintronic device produces 0.1W then you'll be able to build a processor that can run a lot faster with the same heat output.
      Spintronics is just another tech that might be better than classic electronics. It might end up filling a niche or perhaps a larger part of what is currently done with electronics. But noone (except the people from marketing) is going to garantee that this will be the next revolution.

  2. Article clearly by a non-tech by Grab · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I love the line "Imagine that random access memory is accessible immediately". What a prat.

    Lesson to all journalists: if you don't know enough to say anything on a subject, don't try to say anything yourself - just report what other people say and you'll be fine. Try to add your own tag-lines, and you'll end up saying something stupid like this.

    Grab.