IBM

IBM reports some advances in their racetrack memory program, and they are now able to measure the movement and processing of data as a magnetic pattern on a nanowire (which is 1,000 finer than a human hair).

Racetrack memory uses electron spin to move data on nanowires at hundreds of miles per hour - and has the potential to be very lower power with high densities.

This year’s fifth annual International Wafer-Level Packaging Conference (IWLPC), October 13-16, 2008 will be the largest ever, according to Dr. Ken Gilleo, IWLPC general chair.

“Exhibitor and attendee interest has been very high, and we anticipate this year’s event will be the largest, as well as the most comprehensive, in our history,” Dr. Gilleo said. With two months to go, the 60-table exhibitor space at our Wyndham Hotel venue is nearly fully occupied.

IBM and the ETH Zürich University have agreed to jointly build a laboratory for nanotechnology research. The research activities aim at technologies for the post-CMOS era such as carbon-based materials, nano photonics, spintronics, nanowires and tribology.

The lab will have a 90$ million investment. About one third will go to purchase equipment. The work will begin in Spring 2009, and the activities will start in 2011, and planned to last at least 10 years.

Read more here (EETimes) 

In two papers published in the April 11 issue of Science, IBM Fellow Stuart Parkin and colleagues at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose describe both the fundamentals of a technology dubbed "racetrack" memory as well as a milestone in that technology. This milestone could lead to electronic devices capable of storing far more data in the same amount of space than is possible today, with lightning-fast boot times, far lower cost and unprecedented stability and durability.

Under the current plan, IBM and TDK, an integral player in magnetic recording components for hard drives, will develop a 65-nanometer prototype within the next four years.