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IBM Creates Working "Racetrack Memory"
holy_calamity writes "IBM has created the first working 'racetrack memory' device — a technology we've discussed as it's been touted as the future of memory. It works by writing bits using the magnetic domains inside a very thin wire. Those domain can be shunted along this 'racetrack' and past read heads."
... bubble memory. Welcome to 1968.
I can't be the first one to read this and think, eh, isn't this just bubble memory?
threadeds blog
If you had an infinite-length track, you could theoretically encode data which could itself be interpreted as processor instructions. Then, given these instructions, you could move back and forth within this track and read data and further instructions. With a fairly minimum number of instructions, it would be possible to synthesize more complex instruction batches.
This sounds like such a great idea. I wish I had it already!
So, this is basically a solid-state version of mercury delay lines?
Bit 1 - Did something?
Bit 2 - ??????
Bit 3 - Profited?
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
Turing Machine!
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
it will be a few years before this is practical, and even then, people won't buy it. new motherboards will have to be introduced, ultimately resulting in have to get a new pc (if you are a business). so slashdotters, i would hold off for, lets say, 7 years before getting this.
If people can get past, can they get future? Best way to confuse a stoner
I wouldly like the for hourse spaghetti in turn specimenologized crimes,__?
So Racetrack is the twelfth Cylon?
Doesn't anyone remember the "bubble memory"? from the 70's and 80's and was a loop racetrack type device.
Without a proper Light -Distance analogy I have no way of being impressed by the speed of device. Is it knuckle to knee? Nose to toe? People need to know these things!
'Those domain can be shunted along this 'racetrack' and past read heads.'
What does that sentence even mean ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
but hasn't this been done in the past with electrical pulses sent down a very long wire? In a loop? So long ago that registers were called accumulators?
I remember my OpSys prof showing us one of these things that was new and shiny when HE was in school. Basically just a long (couple km, I think) wire wrapped up in a small coil the size of a shoebox that acted as RAM by sending pulses around the loop, reading them and then sending them again... the delay of electrons traveling the loop acted as extra space, until you were sending pulses continuously. Sort of like a circular stack.
Anyone else see some similarities here?
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Meh.
Wake me when they come up with "Hot Dog" or "Crashdown" memory.
JJ
If this gets used a lot, at least Microsoft can blame all their problems on 'race track memory things crashing'.
This is brilliant for them!
Seriously, though. The idea of storing bits on top of each other instead of alongside each other does give a much smaller footprint, and from what I understand from what I've read some 3 years ago, also a much better speed vs thermal efficiency.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Nope, more like NASCAR. Just a bunch of bits turning left for 500 ns.
I assume that is what you were getting at; after all that is pretty much how DNA works, only without needing an infinite track.
[Ego]out
The interesting thing is that they feel it is capable of being primary storage...so we're talking Terabytes...
Could be interesting.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Does anyone have any idea how this compares to programmable metallization cell technology which made the news recently? How close to production is PMC vs racetrack memory?
"War makes me sad." - Me
...'RaceTrack' reminds me of 'TokenRing'
first they "Ship Fastest CPU on Earth" now this. all after loosing 300K jobs and being fucked by EPA. what the hell is going on at IBM? has the The Large Hadron Collider been turned on already? should we be expecting lots of zombies on pink unicorns anytime soon? sheeeeeet.
So they're saying sequential access is better than dynamic access? What's the advantage in that? Oh wait, I need to access data at location $ff00, let me spin the bits around the track a few thousand times til I get to that memory location. Duh?
Demon with a Glass Hand by Harlan Ellison tells the story of a man who can only remember the past ten days struggling to determine who he is, why he has a glass hand with missing fingers, and why an alien race is trying to kill him.
In the denouement a very important copper wire with very high density storage is central.
44 year old spoilers at the link.
I'm too young to remember bubble memory, but don't worry Google is my friend and the (ever so) helpful /.r's will correct any errors in their normal polite, restrained and helpful fashion.
From what I understand you created a circular magnetic field and then loaded a pattern into in, moving it around the field and past the read area to determine the data value. The pattern density was very high and the loops were printed onto the surface of the device, a bit like the old 80s game donkey kong they were joined into one big loop. They peaked at around 1Mbit size in the 80s, before more conventional technology was developed to replace them.
By using a very very thin wire as the loop, IBM have further increased the data density, and modern high speed electronics allows faster access time. Key to the new idea is the technology to move the data around the wire - this is the novel part of the invention.
This offers low cost, high storage volatile storage devices to maybe replace existing RAM technology.
A miniature token ring.... That went over well for IBM...
-CF
Before they perfected magnetic storage, acoustic delay queues in mercury were used as secondary memory.
Come on down to Racetrack Memory.
Set your data running the loop and then sit back and watch the fun.
Have drunken parties as you watch you bits speed around the course.
Place bets on your bits coming in first, a place, or if you are feeling really lucky plonk your money down for a trifecta.
Its so much fun for the whole family that even if you lose you still win!!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I recall as a teenager going to the race track with the family for New Years. My parents let me place a couple of two dollar bets. I even won a bit of money from the adventure.
Now that I see that IBM is creating Race Trace Memories, I'm not sure if this is actually mine now, or inserted into my brain by some IBM affiliate.
Curse You!
on the racetrack memory results. "Come on, NAND gate#7. Lucky #7! Daddy needs a new iPod"
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Is it me or old is new again? I'm getting tired of seeing things we've already done and moved on being broght back as the next best thing. And why would we want to move from solid state to a something that has moving parts. What if you drop it? Will it jump the "racetrack"?!
perfect for passing information inside POW camps.
"I see Nuthin... I know Nuthin...."
Ars Technica picked this up yesterday and has a pretty good run-down of how it works (complete with a pretty illustration).
They also provide Links to the Science articles themselves:
It's promising, but there are still some lingering issues:
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I dunno, but I'm not sure I want my memory making left turns all day long...
I'm a Chinese and I predicted this several years ago in a Chinese IT forum during the time when Wii is just announced and not yet named as Wii.
The forum is www.jg1998.org, a forum for talented high school programmers. I use the name of æå¦åé to predict the next generation of hard disk which also serves as RAM and have the fast speed of RAM. If you don't believe me, go ask the people at jg1998 or search the internet archive.
I think I even send a mail to a top 5 tech company in China using mathchicken@yahoo.com and persuade them to do research in this area (hard disk that use RAM technology, a hard disk that can serve as RAM).
No Chinese took interest in my ideas and took action despite me giving my ideas for free. Now it's America being the first again, being the innovator again, and being the leader again.
There are magnetized wires out there with analog sound recordings on them from the days before vinyl. This is nothing new, and without a better control and recall system, is highly inefficient. Now, if the patent deals with the control system, kudos to IBM. If it deals with just the idea of selectively magnetizing a wire set, this has already been done. Google wire recording if you want more info.