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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."

11 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, FFS. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Just when we were hoping for faster SSD's.

    Next you'll be telling us that new improvements in tape mean non-sequential access, and RW speeds 5x faster than current NAND.

    Call me when punch cards support DRM.

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    THL phish sticks
    1. 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.

    2. Re:Oh, FFS. by adrianwn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, it's more like a replacement for the "DRAM"-part in "(DDR-)SDRAM": "DRAM" describes the underlying memory technology, while "synchronous" describes the interface method (the results are returned on the edges of the clock signal). So the product will probably be called "SMRAM" or "DDR-SMRAM".

    3. Re:Oh, FFS. by omfgnosis · · Score: 3, Funny

      But it won't be able to compete with DDR-SMARM.

  2. Re:Neat... by Fourier404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's what they said about transistors.

  3. Can we have some specifics? by isBandGeek() · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How fast is "as fast as permitted according to the fundamental laws of physics' limit"?

    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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  4. Re:you know whats better? being able to buy it... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, I bet your father said that when Intel produced their first 1024x1 ram chip. Pff... fuckin pie in the sky that was, integrated circuit RAM. They sure wasted their time; It never did become widely available at a decent price, as I recall.

    Woops, gotta go. Sense amplifier on my core is drifting out of alignment.

  5. Re:Neat... by flnca · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Indeed, that's what they said about transistors. Even in the early 80ies, we learnt in school that tubes were the non plus ultra and that transistors had an uncertain future!! A few years later, tube production was stopped everywhere.

  6. Re:Ballistic switching? by fbjon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ballistic switching? Is that related to percussive storage?

    Is that what they call fisticuffs these days? I do agree that too much input makes my face sore.

    --
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  7. Re:Neat... by kesuki · · Score: 2, Informative

    the music industry was still highly reliant upon tubes to this date, there are still suppliers of tubes for use in the music industry, even though CDs are all digital. some artists insist that the use of tubes changes the way audio sounds before it's sampled by the digitizer... and of course, there are those who still release music on vinyl.

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