IBM to tear down Moore's Law (Oh goody -- what will a new Fab cost now?)

Fudzilla ^ | Friday, 13 January 2012 11:50 | Nedim Hadzic

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Cuts bit size down to 12 atoms

IBM announced on Thursday that its boffins managed to cut the physical requirements for a bit of data, whereby number of required atoms has been reduced from a million to only 12.

Of course, it goes without saying that this means higher density and more space. Indeed, 1TB drives would quickly become old news as 100TB or 150TB would become a common thing.

For its research, IBM used antiferromagnetism to achieve 100 times denser memory. Antiferromagnetism refers to magnetic moments of atoms or molecules where they align with neighboring spins pointing in opposite directions. Note that current devices use ferromagnetic materials.

Antiferromagnetism is of course quite tricky and exceeding a certain temperature, called the Néel temperature, causes bit size to be much more than 12 atoms. Thankfully, this is still much better than what the current technology offers.  

For its experiments, IBM used iron atoms on copper nitrate. However, it is said that other materials could in theory do even better, i.e. use less atoms per bit. 

IBM’s researcher Andreas Heinrich said:”Moore's Law is basically the drive of the industry to shrink components down little by little and then solve the engineering challenges that go along with that but keeping the basic concepts the same. The basic concepts of magnetic data storage or even transistors haven't really changed over the past 20 years (…)The ultimate end of Moore's Law is a single atom. That's where we come in."

More here.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ping

[djf]

IBM could fire everybody, hire a trustee and close it’s doors tomorrow and STILL make boatloads of money every day!

I believe they hold more patents than any other corporation in history. Some fantastic number like one out of ten or one out of twenty of the patents ever issued.

[bmwcyle]

ping

[djf]

IBM tops US patent list for 19th consecutive year

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20120112230304_IBM_Tops_U_S_Patent_List_for_19th_Consecutive_Year.html

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the link at the bottom of the article:

IBM smashes Moore's Law, cuts bit size to 12 atoms

****************************************EXCERPT**********************************************

IBM announced Thursday that after five years of work, its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms required to create a bit of data.

The breakthrough may someday allow data storage hardware manufacturers to produce products with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today's hard disk and flash drives.

"Looking at this conservatively ... instead of 1TB on a device you'd have 100TB to 150TB. Instead of being able to store all your songs on a drive, you'd be able to have all your videos on the device," said Andreas Heinrich, IBM Research Staff Member and lead investigator on this project.

Today, storage devices use ferromagnetic materials where the spin of atoms are aligned or in the same direction.

Related Content

The IBM researchers used an unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism, where atoms spin in opposite directions, allowing scientists to create an experimental atomic-scale magnet memory that is at least 100 times denser than today's hard disk drives and solid-state memory chips.

The technology could also someday be applied to tape media.

While the science behind what IBM researchers accomplished is complex, the results are quite simple: They put a spin on the old adage that "opposites attract."

Instead today's method for magnetic storage where iron atoms are lined up with the same magnetic polarization, requiring greater distance between them, IBM created atoms with opposite magnetization, pulling them more tightly together.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I want to highlight this from the article linked just above

the research proves storage mediums can be vastly denser than they are today.

[Bobalu]

I remember when a 20mb drive was a BIG drive.
It could hold maybe 5 short .mp3 files now..lol

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Related thread:

Intel’s new revolutionary Tri-Gate 3D transistors (Moore's Law remains valid-video)

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Intel needs to improve their game ....

[Dr. Sivana]

Some fantastic number like one out of ten or one out of twenty of the patents ever issued.

That may be so, but as long as they are legit patents for ground-breaking stuff I'm good with that. Also, patents have a reasonably finite shelf-life. IBM has to keep the goods coming. You might want to ask Pfizer about that problem.

[Dr. Sivana]

I remember when a 20mb drive was a BIG drive.

Actually, a 20MB hard drive (5 1/4" Full-Height) is still a pretty big drive, though not nearly as big as the Priam 14" 60MB drive. Below is a pretty big 15MB drive!

http://www.recycledgoods.com/products/Tandon-TM503-5.25%22-15MB-MFM-FH-3600RPM-Hard-Drive-As-Is-for-Parts.htm

[Bobalu]

Now that there is a boat anchor :-)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Had a Made in USA label too!

[PapaBear3625]

I got you beat. When I started out, we were using IBM 2311 disk drives, a washing-machine-sized unit with 7 1/2 meg capacity.

[No Truce With Kings]

“I got you beat. When I started out, we were using IBM 2311 disk drives, a washing-machine-sized unit with 7 1/2 meg capacity.”

Anyone remember 8-inch floppies with 128Kb of memory?

Anyone remember when 128Kb seemed like a lot?

[NVDave]

There used to be two powerhouses of blue-sky research that could later be developed into products: One was IBM, and the other was AT&T, aka “Bell Labs.”

Thanks to breaking up the phone company, Bell Labs is a shadow of it’s former self.

[PapaBear3625]

Anyone remember 8-inch floppies with 128Kb of memory?

Yep.

[Neidermeyer]

Got me beat ,, I used to be a storage admin ,, had a boatload of 3330-1 and 3330-2’s AND a 3850 mass storage system ,, thought I was in heaven when 3350’s came out in quantity... unfortunately when IBM had a minor 3380 problem and shut down production for a while we had to buy those hideous StorageTEK 3350 copies that had head crashes after 3 months of use..