Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Racetrack Memory - what is it..??!!

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You may be having the most advanced configuration for your computer but still, I bet sometimes you wish computer to be faster and efficient...:) Well, you may have to wait for another 5 to 7 years.... 'Racetrack memory' is on its way....!!

With Racetrack Memory,
  • you can have your computer booted up instantly...!!
  • Also you can access your HDD at 100,000 times faster than now..!! ( its lightning speed...:) )
  • Moreover it's 300 times more energy efficient..!!
What more do you want..???
So now you may be thinking ... what is it...???

Stuart Parkin of IBM’s Almaden Research Center came up with a concept of spintroncs-based memory in which the parts dont move instead the information moves. Prof. Mathias Kläui of Switzerland’s EPFL ( École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne ) developed the concept and came up with the Racetrack memory.

Like a videocassette, Racetrack Memory would store data magnetically. Instead of on a moving tape, however, it would be stored on a tiny unmoving nickel-iron nanowire. The bits of information, which are stored in the wire using the spin of electrons rather than an electronic charge, would be moved around at several hundred meters per second, using a spin polarized current. Adjacent bits would be delineated from one another via domain walls with magnetic vortices.
Just to get you an idea of how much faster this could be..., according to EPFL, accessing these nanowires is like reading an entire VHS tape in less than a second..!! They are planning to embed millions or even billions of such nanowires on the chip...!! ( got the idea..?...:) )

But before it hits the consumer market, there are lots of difficulties to be overcome. Such as...
Microscopic imperfections in the crystal structure of the wires, which led to the magnetic domains becoming “stuck,” and it results in a performance equal to current HDDs'.

Lets hope it hits the market soon and days of booting up our computers instantly are not far...:)

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