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Texas A&M Research Brings Racetrack Memory a Bit Closer

Posted by timothy on from the a-few-bits-really dept.

MojoKid writes "IBM is one of a number of companies working on a next-generation storage memory project and a recent discovery at Texas A&M University is a step forward for the company's racetrack memory. Racetrack memory relies on a nanowire arranged perpendicular to the chip. Current pulses across the nanowires allow data to be shifted as necessary. In theory, racetrack memory could be the Holy Grail of storage, capable of replacing both traditional hard drives and SSDs simultaneously. Racetrack memory could solve multiple problems and commercial implementations could offer hard drive-level density. Performance and reliability would both be far superior to today's SSDs. To date, IBM has demo'd a three-bit racetrack configuration. It's a start, but it's far from a shippable product at this juncture." What the A&M researchers have come up with is "a way to pulse the current much more efficiently and quickly."

9 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Delaylineish. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    Somehow I am reminded of the old mercury delay line memory.
    Also, first?

    1. Re:Delaylineish. by splutty · · Score: 2, Informative

      You must've clicked through to the original article, where that's been modded up quite a bit :)

      But yes. It has similarities. The main difference as far as I can see is that this is much more '3D'. I sort of imagine a carpet waving around (funny mental image, do we now need tiny kittens to scratch their nails on that?)

      But the option of being able to store multiple bits no a relatively small footprint is of course the most interesting one, although I wonder about the heat dissipation or production of these sort of arrays..

      (And yes, it looks like you were a first :)

      --
      Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
    2. Re:Delaylineish. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Informative

      A more important difference is that the old delay lines had the bits constantly moving along - when you wanted to access one, you just waited for it to pass by the transducer. This model has the bits hold still until they are made to move back or forth along their track, like a train moving one-carriage-at-a-time past a loading crane.

  2. New Tech - Old Architecture by careysub · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Brings back the magnetic bubble memories!

    --
    Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
  3. 3-bit racetrack? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are the bits named Win, Place, and Show?

  4. Re:Plagiarize Much? by noidentity · · Score: 2, Informative
    That's nothing! Your post has exact copies of everything you cited.

    But yeah, Slashdot summaries these days are almost always just copy-and-paste from the article.

  5. Racetrack Memories by digitaldc · · Score: 2

    Hopefully, the motto of this new storage device will not be "I lost EVERYTHING!"

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  6. Re:Plagiarize Much? by noidentity · · Score: 2

    Yeah, and Slashdot comments these days are almost always just copy-and-paste from the parent.

    Really?

  7. Re:Storage vs. Memory by gman003 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, the predicted speeds for racetrack memory are rather close to RAM speeds. It could be possible to operate it as primary storage - it would be a bit sluggish for calculations, but it would eliminate the need to read in chunks of files to be operated on. Given the increasing size of L3 cache, it could be possible for racetrack memory to replace SSDs and RAM while pushing hard drives into the "long-term storage" role, and have the L3 cache take the role of RAM.

    This isn't a firm prediction - I'm not even sure racetrack memory will come to anything, but if it does, "the death of RAM" is entirely possible.