IBM Claims Spintronics Memory Breakthrough
CWmike writes with this excerpt from ComputerWorld: "In a paper set to be published this week in the scientific journal Nature, IBM researchers are claiming a huge breakthrough in spintronics, a technology that could significantly boost capacity and lower power use of memory and storage devices. Spintronics, short for 'spin transport electronics,' uses the natural spin of electrons within a magnetic field in combination with a read/write head to lay down and read back bits of data on semiconductor material. By changing an electron's axis in an up or down orientation — all relative to the space in which it exists — physicists are able to have it represent bits of data. For example, an electron on an upward axis is a one; and an electron on a downward axis is a zero. Spintronics has long faced an intrinsic problem because electrons have only held an 'up or down' orientation for 100 picoseconds. A picosecond is one trillionth of a second [one thousandth of a nanosecond.] One hundred picoseconds is not enough time for a compute cycle, so transistors cannot complete a compute function and data storage is not persistent. In the study published in Nature, IBM Research and the Solid State Physics Laboratory at ETH Zurich announced they had found a way to synchronize electrons, which could extend their spin lifetime by 30 times to 1.1 nanoseconds, the time it takes for a 1 GHz processor to cycle."
Was it really necessary to explain the SI unit 'pico' on Slashdot...?
No sig today...
That's some really, really dynamic RAM. Don't skip a refresh cycle.
Likely not, or not like they claim. Stories like this remind me of Maxwell's Demon. It seems to violate the rules, allows for unlimited energy! Except until you realize that the demon can't be run for free. They claim the breakthrough in stability of the spin states and neglect the cost in space and energy in everything else around it.
Stop this sensationalism! Give me some science on it and tell me some more details. How do they generate electrons with a single spin? How about a blurb about spintronics already being used in modern hard drive read heads? Cut the nonsense and tittilating lies about promises of the future and tell us the details.
Geez
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
Spintronics...uses the natural spin of electrons within a magnetic field in combination with a read/write head to lay down and read back bits of data on semiconductor material.
I'm wondering if this will fail the same way HDDs do when the head falls? Whenever I see something about read/write heads, I get flashblacks to all the clicks-of-death I've heard over the years, and it always makes me wince a little.
I'll admit it, I don't entirely understand what they're talking about here, but it seems a little scant on details such as whether or not this uses readily available (cheap) materials or uses some rare elements that are possibly put to better use elsewhere. I'm sure many will disagree with me and point out cases where I'm wrong, but I'm personally not all that concerned about having more storage, I've got more than I know what to do with at the moment. What I would rather see is some technology that is more easily recyclable.
If they're relying on the simple rotation of a very tiny particle, couldn't I then significantly erase parts of my SSD by simply shaking it? In other words, erase it like an etch a sketch? :-P I mean how hard I can shake it compared to the mass and energy of a tiny spinning particle, it could start spinning a different way, right? That and ionizing radiation in any tiny dose would blow apart all your data. Get read for an SSD and RAM sticks cased in lead.
Besides, why do all that effort getting the spin to last 30 times longer.. Take the short rout and work on a 30ghz processor! Problem solved!
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
I think a better name would be Super Mega Ultra Golem RAM. (in other words, SMUGRAM) ... that was terrible. I couldn't think of a word for G so I just put Golem.
I'm going to go cry in the stationary cupboard now. I'm sorry.
No crying in the tardis.
Since when does 100 picoseconds * 30 = 1.1 nanoseconds?
Maybe they meant to add that particular war to the war queue?
Pentium
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Gnarly?
See subject.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.