Spintronics -new emerging Technology

Spintronics (a neologism meaning "spin transport electronics"[1][2]), also known as magnetoelectronics, is an emerging technology that exploits the intrinsic spin of electrons and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-state devices.


The storage density of hard drives is rapidly increasing along an exponential growth curve, in part because spintronics-enabled devices like GMR and TMR sensors have increased the sensitivity of the read head which measures the magnetic state of small magnetic domains (bits) on the spinning platter. The doubling period for the areal density of information storage is twelve months, much shorter than Moore's Law, which observes that the number of transistors that can cheaply be incorporated in an integrated circuit doubles every two years.

MRAM, or magnetic random access memory, uses a grid of magnetic storage elements called magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ's). MRAM is nonvolatile (unlike charge-based DRAM in today's computers) so information is stored even when power is turned off, potentially providing instant-on computing. Motorola has developed a 1st generation 256 kb MRAM based on a single magnetic tunnel junction and a single transistor and which has a read/write cycle of under 50 nanoseconds[9] (Everspin, Motorola's spin-off, has since developed a 4 Mbit version[10]). There are two 2nd generation MRAM techniques currently in development: Thermal Assisted Switching (TAS)[11] which is being developed by Crocus Technology, and Spin Torque Transfer (STT) on which Crocus, Hynix, IBM, and several other companies are working[12].

Another design in development, called Racetrack memory, encodes information in the direction of magnetization between domain walls of a ferromagnetic metal wire.


for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spintronics