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New Speed Record For Magnetic Memory

Posted by timothy on from the think-fast dept.

Iddo Genuth writes "An experiment performed at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany has uncovered that a spin-torque switching of a nanomagnet is as fast as what is permitted according to the fundamental laws of physics' limit. This method of switching, also named ballistic switching, could allow for increased speeds in future non-volatile magnetic memories."

2 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can we have some specifics? by Fluffeh · · Score: 4, Informative
    RTFA :)

    By using the ballistic spin torque reversal, potential MRAMs could be programmed by current pulses quicker than 1 nanosecond and subsequently, achieving write clock rates well above 1 GHz. Thus, high-density and non-volatile memory executing at the clock rates of the fastest volatile memories were enabled.

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  2. Re:Oh, FFS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    TFA says that this is MRAM which is basically like DDR/SDRAM except that it uses magnatism rather than capacitors/NAND latches to store the data.

    This means nonvolatile RAM (Passwords/private key offline scraping FTW) or it could actually be used in SSDs if it is significantly faster/cheaper than flash chips.