Spinning magnets promise 30x faster memory

Posted on 14 Aug 2008 at 11:06

German scientists have developed a new form of RAM that is as much as 30 times faster than current computer memory.

Whereas conventional RAM stores digital 1’s and 0’s as a variation in the amount of charge in a capacitor, magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) stores them in as north and south polarity in magnetic field, using the spin of electrons to flip the polarity.

Santiago Serrano-Guisan and Hans Schumacher of the Physical-Technical Federal Laboratory of Germany worked with University of Bielefeld and Singulus Nano-Deposition Technologies to develop a new system for this so-called spin torque MRAM that is significantly faster than systems developed elsewhere.

Their system deploys 65nm pillars that contain one fixed and one variable. When a current is applied, the fixed magnet aligns the spin of the electrons so that when they reach then other end of the pillar, they flip a variable magnet as required. The difference in their technique as opposed to other spin torque systems is that the flipped field settles more quickly — in previous systems the variable magnet wobbles slightly before it settles into the correct orientation.

The result is a significant increase in speed, 10 times faster than previous MRAM technologies and as much as 30 times faster than the highest performing RAM.

The next step is to reduce density of the charge used to flip the magnets. Currently the charge used by the researchers can be applied to single pillar, but is too dense to work on an MRAM circuit. But with the likes of IBM, Freescale, Toshiba, NEC, Samsung and Hitachi all investing in MRAM research, a solution should not be too far away.

Author: Simon Aughton

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