Pure innovation from IBM: Better, cheaper, denser, faster, more reliable and simpler.

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The New memories: Two possible configurations of a novel type of memory. The vertical arrangement (left) is more difficult to make, so researchers will probably create the horizontal device (bottom) first. In both, bits of data are stored as domain walls–boundaries between adjacent magnetic regions oriented in different directions. The domain walls can be shuttled along the nanowire past a reading device (purple) that detects magnetic fields, and a writing device (green) that generates them.
A new nanowire-based memory device being created by the researchers at IBM may well coalesce the finest qualities of the different types of memory used today.

With innovation comes in better products at cheaper costs and quicker results.
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Even now, the work is in the very beginning phase of development. But the prospects of it could serve as a universal memory, substituting for the different types that are being used now.

This is termed as a Nanowire memory. This magnetic nanowire (thin line at top) made of iron and nickel is expanded linking electrical contacts to test properties that could direct to improved memory devices.

The device stores bits in the form of domain walls which are areas where two magnetic regions in the nanowire meet.

Stuart Parkin, an experimental physicist at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, in San Jose, CA, says that

The memory, which would pack a hundred bits of data on a single nanowire, could potentially store 10 to 100 times more data than flash–the type of memory used in digital cameras and other small portable devices–while operating at much faster speeds. And because it’s solid-state memory, it would be far sturdier than magnetic hard drives, which require mechanical devices to read and write data. In principle, we could be cheaper than flash would be, denser than flash would be, and orders of magnitude faster. And there’s no wear-out mechanism, so it’s totally reliable.

Parkin’s earlier discoveries and inventions have led to a thousand-fold increase in the storage density of magnetic hard drives, paving the way for the massive data-storage centers crucial to today’s Internet, as well as making possible the immense storage capacity of portable devices such as iPods.

The different combinations and technological applications that seem to be going to the making of this brilliant memory also adds in that it would not require a mobile head and spinning disks to read and write these bits.

Thus, there would be no mechanical parts, making Parkin’s memory much more strong than a hard drive. These devices could also be more compact and cheaper than conventional solid-state memory.

So as we keep awaiting our future to get better and cheaper, it seems it is going to bring in lots of such good memories.

In depth view of a memory ‘Nanowire’(image below)

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Via Source: technologyreview