27-04-2011, 11:11 AM
Racetrack memory is an experimental non-volatile memory device under development at IBM's Almaden Research Center. In early 2008, a 3-bit version was successfully demonstrated.Racetrack memory uses a spin-coherent electric current to move magnetic domains along a nanoscopic permalloy wire about 200 nm across and 100 nm thick. As current is passed through the wire, the domains pass by magnetic read/write heads positioned near the wire, which alter the domains to record patterns of bits. A racetrack memory device is made up of many such wires and read/write elements. Racetrack would offer storage density higher than comparable solid-state memory devices like flash memory and similar to conventional disk drives, and also have much higher read/write performance. It is one of a number of new technologies trying to become a universal memory in the future.
