Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

6 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.)

    --
    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
    1. Re:Room temperature != operational temperature. by UnHolier+than+ever · · Score: 5, Informative

      When energy is used to do work (i.e. lighting a room), then yes, the heat generated is due to an inefficient process, but that doesn't mean that it is possible to have a 100% efficient process. Actually, the second (?) law of thermodynamics states that a 100% efficient process is only possible at absolute zero. On the other hand, a processor produces no work, i.e. there are no moving parts, it doesn't produce light, it doesn't make sound or an electric current. The only thing it does is move electrons around, i.e. changes its entropy. You need energy to do that, but it's not work: the total (useful) energy emitted by the processor is zero, and all energy used goes off as heat. There is a theoretical limit to the amount of energy needed to flip a bit, spintronic might approach that limit better than electronics, but wil not break it, and this energy will still be emitted as heat.

  2. Prior Art? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It definitely brings a new twist to the term "Prior Art"!

    In this case it wouldn't apply, but given the subject mateer it had to be said.

  3. Cobalt green availability by moorhens · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a watercolour pigment, cobalt green is increasingly hard to find. Winsor&Newton no longer stock, nor DalerRowney. The only remaining major supplier seems to be Schminke. It's a really useful colour for making lively blacks, but the point of mentioning here is that these paintmakers all cite poison/health/product liability issues as reasons for its withdrawal. Best not kiss your circuit board any more than you should lick your brush tips.

    1. Re:Cobalt green availability by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you know what materials are used in electronics, you wouldn't come near it with any part of your mounth. Only recently lead was banned from solder. And that's just one of the many unhealthy elements used in electronics. Most components are just toxic sand.

  4. Spintronics by kf6auf · · Score: 5, Informative
    So a bit about spintronics, or spin-based electronics: conventional semiconductor gates are prone to electron tunneling and require energy to maintain their state. Spintronics utilizes quantum mechanical effects in an effort to decrease the tunneling current through magnetoresistance and stores information in the polarization of a magnet so that it does not consume energy to do nothing more than remember from one nanosecond to the next.

    This research has been going on for a long time - you may have heard of it here and it's likely going to take a while before we see it since it still needs to be perfected and then economical and make its way into industry. As far as I can tell by reading the UWNews article, all they did was discover that an old pigment can work. Not that it isn't cool, but it's not really likely to advance science significantly, especially because a previous article in PRL which was published in 2004 mentions this effect.