QUOTE
Source: http://gizmodo.com/378733/ibm-racetrack-me...storage-by-100x
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that IBM is exploiting electrons to create memory with 100x the data density we see today. In terms of iPod, that's 500,000 songs. The bad news is that the technology won't be ready for 7+ years. Here's how it works:
In a crude analogy, think of staggered nanowires as roads that, through simple urban planning, create magnetic alleys to store data. Cars/information can race around throughout the entire grid, but it can only park in the alleys. That information can then be read by exploiting the magnetic fields generated by electron spin. Essentially, the entire system is tiny, but there's a viable magnetic signature to track it all.
Also, because we're dealing with such minute forces and measurements, hardware should run quite cool.
The racetrack research team is prepared to build the prototype, which they consider a 3 to 4 year process. Commercial products are then another few years away from that.
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that IBM is exploiting electrons to create memory with 100x the data density we see today. In terms of iPod, that's 500,000 songs. The bad news is that the technology won't be ready for 7+ years. Here's how it works:
In a crude analogy, think of staggered nanowires as roads that, through simple urban planning, create magnetic alleys to store data. Cars/information can race around throughout the entire grid, but it can only park in the alleys. That information can then be read by exploiting the magnetic fields generated by electron spin. Essentially, the entire system is tiny, but there's a viable magnetic signature to track it all.
Also, because we're dealing with such minute forces and measurements, hardware should run quite cool.
The racetrack research team is prepared to build the prototype, which they consider a 3 to 4 year process. Commercial products are then another few years away from that.
QUOTE
Source: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/spinaps/research/sd/?racetrack
Today digital data is stored in two main types of devices, magnetic hard disk drives, and solid state random access memories. The former stores data very cheaply but, since it relies on the mechanical rotation of a disk, is slow and somewhat unreliable. The latter allows rapid access to data but the cost is about 100 times higher per bit than a magnetic disk drive.
At Almaden we are working on a radically new storage-memory technology based on recently discovered spintronic phenomena. One of these is a means of using spin currents to directly manipulate the magnetic state of nano-scale magnetic regions – magnetic domain walls – within magnetic nano-wires. This device, the magnetic race-track, is a powerful storage-class memory which promises a solid state memory with the cost and storage capacities rivaling that of magnetic disk drives but with much improved performance and reliability. This could provide another revolution in our ability to access and manipulate digital information.
Today digital data is stored in two main types of devices, magnetic hard disk drives, and solid state random access memories. The former stores data very cheaply but, since it relies on the mechanical rotation of a disk, is slow and somewhat unreliable. The latter allows rapid access to data but the cost is about 100 times higher per bit than a magnetic disk drive.
At Almaden we are working on a radically new storage-memory technology based on recently discovered spintronic phenomena. One of these is a means of using spin currents to directly manipulate the magnetic state of nano-scale magnetic regions – magnetic domain walls – within magnetic nano-wires. This device, the magnetic race-track, is a powerful storage-class memory which promises a solid state memory with the cost and storage capacities rivaling that of magnetic disk drives but with much improved performance and reliability. This could provide another revolution in our ability to access and manipulate digital information.
...jst not the battery part..xD
