IBM's prototype STT MRAM device spins your bits right round, baby, right round
By Tim Stevens 
posted Dec 18th 2008 9:49AM
posted Dec 18th 2008 9:49AM
If you're a frequent reader you're surely well aware of the potential of spin torque transfer memory, or STT-MRAM, and how spin-polarized magnetic currents (and the electrons they love to caress) might hold the potential to revolutionize storage as we know it. If you can't get your noggin around the concepts, know the potential: a new type of memory that will be cheaper, faster, and more efficient than current RAM, while also having the flash-like ability to retain data without power. IBM, who first floated the idea last year, is now sharing some more details about its prototype device that, while only able to store 4Kb of data (roughly half the text of this post in ASCII), is said to be able to retain that for 10 years. There's still no word on when we might be able to buy some of the stuff for our home computers, or when it'll be able to hold something a little more impressive (like maybe a whole post), but we're guessing it'll be well into the next decade before your Three 6 Mafia MP3 collection starts ridin' spinning electrons that don't stop. [Via MRAM-Info]
You spin me right round baby right round...
.. like a record baby, right round round round.
My first link to a popular site which utilises the song for maximum effect, has subsequently been removed.
:(
Uh, and you don't stop... yell 1 00 1 on a mother&%*in electron...
This technology could go a long way for instant on OS.
Much of what an OS does in boot up is load up the RAM.
Um, your whole post, including headline and byline is only 1KB...
Back to school for you, sir.
They said Kb,.. you are saying KB...
bits and bytes?
Mind the case of that "b" there. The post was just over 1000 chars. That's about 8,000 bits in ASCII, or just under 8Kb.
Doh!
Mea culpa. Can you tell I assume the worst about Engadget's writers?
...and I will be returning to school shortly...
Um, I comment on blogs all day and try to find minute errors to point out. And since I suck at life, I can't even do that well........
Perhaps if you used 7bit ascii you could fit the entire post in there! No special characters, though!
Everspin (former unit of Freescale Semiconductor) has MRAM devices for sale today.
http://www.everspin.com/
"memory that will be cheaper"
YAY!
my dream is to buy cheap memory from apple. *sigh*
if you're going to dream, dream big.
like memory free as in beer.
Dream big? NO MORE SPAM!
@andres
I dream that Kate Winslet will read this post and leave her husband for me.
P.S. Kate, bring his American Beauty Oscar, okay? I'm going to use it to get a job directing Pixar's next film, okay?
...
Nope, cheap memory from apple is still a bigger dream.
I'm pretty sure IBM was not floating the idea last year... I read about MRAM about five years ago in a Wired Magazine while I was in high school and companies had this churning in their R&D Labs already...
Think this is different to straight up MRAM; this stuff has a kinky twist.
4Kb ought to be enough for anybody
Well Im excited.......
4k is enough for this post - I generously count 1215 characters (bytes). Even including HTML, no way it gets to 8k.
Doh, unless you realize the memory is 4k bits, not bytes !!!
Is this the same project named IBM race track? See YouTube for short video
This sounds alot like bubble menory from mid 80's
This STT method is pretty cool but they are still going to be crippled in the size limitations set by the spin coherence length of their medium. This means that either they will have to use injectors dispersed throughout the lattice or the lattice will have to be a 3-D structure which each poses its own set of challenges. I think that even with this new method they still need some quantum leaps before this technology will take off as it should.
It can store data only for 10 years? That's not good enough for me. Maybe it's good for my phone.
I love caressing electrons too!