(computerworld.com.au) An IBM research breakthrough could let storage devices hold hundreds of times more information than they handle today with technology IBM calls “racetrack memory,” which stores data as a magnetic pattern on a nanowire 1,000 times finer than a human hair.
Here’s how it works: spin polarized electrical currents cause the magnetic pattern to race along a wire track, from which data can be read or written — in either direction – in less than a nanosecond.
“Data is written by placing a second nanowire with a special pattern on it near the first nanowire,” according to an IBM video describing the research. “The data on the first nanowire can be changed by moving the pattern along the second wire. The racetrack memory would stand thousands of nanowires around the edge of a chip, potentially allowing for hundreds of times the amount of storage in the same space as today’s memory.”
The researchers project that within the next 10 years new solid-state storage devices based on racetrack memory will hit the market, enabling, for example, an MP3 player that can store 500,000 songs or 3,500 movies.
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