IBM makes racetrack memory breakthrough, which could come in handy someday

[img]http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/04/4-11-08-racetrack-memory.jpg
[/img]If you can't tell your DRAM from your STT-MRAM, you'll need to
bear with us for a sec: IBM's figured out the math required to read
and write data from the spaces between magnetic fields, racing across
a nanowire, at hundreds of miles per hour. IBM's been plugging away at
the so-called racetrack memory since 2004, calling it the perfect
hybrid of magnetic storage and flash, but until recently scientists
didn't know whether the magnetic domain walls (where data will live)
had any mass to speak of. As it turns out, they do, and thus have to
obey the tiresome laws of physics as they move along the nanowire
"track," but also accelerate and decelerate the exact same amount,
more or less canceling out the effect. Long story short, IBM can use
this knowledge to precisely position those 1s and 0s in their newfound
data bank, and someday we'll all reap the benefits of dense, speedy
and reliable memory. You know, assuming PRAM, FeRAM, ReRAM and
memristors don't eat IBM's lunch. PR after the break.