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IBM Creates Working "Racetrack Memory"

Posted by kdawson on from the and-they're-off dept.

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."

13 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... bubble memory. Welcome to 1968.

    1. Re:Sounds like... by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ah, you beat me to it. The mercury delay lines were readily available because they had been developed for radar systems in WW2.

      CRT based memory was also, in a sense, a product of radar. If you've seen early radar depictions from old movies, you had this kind of linear cursor started at the center of a round CRT tube and went to the edge. The end swept around the perimeter of the display, and when a line crossed a "blip", it would be refreshed. Over the next couple of seconds the blip would fade and the sweeping line would refresh the blip in a slightly different place. The persistence of phosphors on the screen were a kind of short term memory, so it's not surprising that engineers familiar with radar hit on the idea of making CRT storage units.

      Random access is not the only memory model ever used in computers, nor is it the only one that will ever be used in the future. This is one of the reasons CS students are taught to regard polynomial time differences between classes of algorithms as relatively unimportant in a theoretical sense, although they are obviously important in a practical sense.

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  2. Imagine an infinite-length wire "track" by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

    1. Re:Imagine an infinite-length wire "track" by itlurksbeneath · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hmm... To use a car analogy (this is Slashdot, right?): if you had a car on an infinite-length track, would it be the ultimate Touring Machine?

      Cue groans...

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  3. FTFA by Oxy+the+moron · · Score: 3, Funny

    The first ever racetrack memory device is able to store and read three bits of data using the racetrack method.

    Bit 1 - Did something?
    Bit 2 - ??????
    Bit 3 - Profited?

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    Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.

  4. Need an analogy by Cryophallion · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  5. Re:this won't take off soon by pipatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh! New motherboards would have to be introduced! That could take some time to switch to indeed, because it's quite rare that such a thing happens.

    Except for the switch from DRAM to SDRAM. And the switch from SDRAM to DDR, and from DDR to DDR2, and from DDR2 to DDR3, and from AGP to PCI-e, and from IDE to SATA, and.. and.. ad infinitum.

    --
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  6. Correct me if I'm wrong, by jockeys · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  7. That's nothin' by Jupiter+Jones · · Score: 5, Funny

    Meh.

    Wake me when they come up with "Hot Dog" or "Crashdown" memory.

    JJ

  8. Re:Turing Machine! by somersault · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lego Turing Machine

    Lego Difference Engine :D

    --
    which is totally what she said
  9. Compared to PMC? by babymac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  10. Timeline by audubon · · Score: 3, Funny

    The first ever racetrack memory device is able to store and read three bits of data using the racetrack method.
    Assuming memory capacity doubles every two years, IBM expects to have a 64 kilobyte version ready by mid 2025.
  11. No betting by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Funny

    on the racetrack memory results. "Come on, NAND gate#7. Lucky #7! Daddy needs a new iPod"

    --
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