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New Speed Record For Magnetic Memory

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."

6 of 26 comments (clear)

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

    That's what they said about transistors.

  2. 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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  3. 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.

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

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

  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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