New Device May Revolutionize Computer Memory

doctorie · Jan 22, 2011

Im not even going to pretend I understood much of this..but it sounds cool!!!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120111025.htm

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2011) â€” Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new device that represents a significant advance for computer memory, making large-scale "server farms" more energy efficient and allowing computers to start more quickly.

Traditionally, there are two types of computer memory devices. Slow memory devices are used in persistent data storage technologies such as flash drives. They allow us to save information for extended periods of time, and are therefore called nonvolatile devices. Fast memory devices allow our computers to operate quickly, but aren't able to save data when the computers are turned off. The necessity for a constant source of power makes them volatile devices.

But now a research team from NC State has developed a single "unified" device that can perform both volatile and nonvolatile memory operation and may be used in the main memory.

"We've invented a new device that may revolutionize computer memory," says Dr. Paul Franzon, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "Our device is called a double floating-gate field effect transistor (FET). Existing nonvolatile memory used in data storage devices utilizes a single floating gate, which stores charge in the floating gate to signify a 1 or 0 in the device -- or one 'bit' of information. By using two floating gates, the device can store a bit in a nonvolatile mode, and/or it can store a bit in a fast, volatile mode -- like the normal main memory on your computer."

The double floating-gate FET could have a significant impact on a number of computer problems. For example, it would allow computers to start immediately, because the computer wouldn't have to retrieve start-up data from its hard drive -- the data could be stored in its main memory.

The new device would also allow "power proportional computing." For example, Web server farms, such as those used by Google, consume an enormous amount of power -- even when there are low levels of user activity -- in part because the server farms can't turn off the power without affecting their main memory.

"The double floating-gate FET would help solve this problem," Franzon says, "because data could be stored quickly in nonvolatile memory -- and retrieved just as quickly. This would allow portions of the server memory to be turned off during periods of low use without affecting performance."

Franzon also notes that the research team has investigated questions about this technology's reliability, and that they think the device "can have a very long lifetime, when it comes to storing data in the volatile mode."

The paper, "Computing with Novel Floating-Gate Devices," will be published Feb. 10 in IEEE's Computer. The paper was authored by Franzon; former NC State Ph.D. student Daniel Schinke; former NC State master's student Mihir Shiveshwarkar; and Dr. Neil Di Spigna, a research assistant professor at NC State. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

NC State's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is part of the university's College of Engineering.
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doctorie · Jan 22, 2011

Researchers have developed a single â€œunifiedâ€ device that can perform both volatile and nonvolatile memory operation, with applications that could affect computer start times and energy efficiency for internet servers. (Credit: Image courtesy of North Carolina State University)

doctorie · Jan 22, 2011

in further computer news...

Ultrafast Quantum Computer Closer: Ten Billion Bits of Entanglement Achieved in Silicon

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2011) — Scientists from Oxford University have made a significant step towards an ultrafast quantum computer by successfully generating 10 billion bits of quantum entanglement in silicon for the first time -- entanglement is the key ingredient that promises to make quantum computers far more powerful than conventional computing devices.
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The researchers used high magnetic fields and low temperatures to produce entanglement between the electron and the nucleus of an atom of phosphorous embedded in a highly purified silicon crystal. The electron and the nucleus behave as a tiny magnet, or 'spin', each of which can represent a bit of quantum information. Suitably controlled, these spins can interact with each other to be coaxed into an entangled state -- the most basic state that cannot be mimicked by a conventional computer.

An international team from the UK, Japan, Canada and Germany, report their achievement in the journal Nature.

'The key to generating entanglement was to first align all the spins by using high magnetic fields and low temperatures,' said Stephanie Simmons of Oxford University's Department of Materials, first author of the report. 'Once this has been achieved, the spins can be made to interact with each other using carefully timed microwave and radiofrequency pulses in order to create the entanglement, and then prove that it has been made.'

The work has important implications for integration with existing technology as it uses dopant atoms in silicon, the foundation of the modern computer chip. The procedure was applied in parallel to a vast number of phosphorous atoms.

'Creating 10 billion entangled pairs in silicon with high fidelity is an important step forward for us,' said co-author Dr John Morton of Oxford University's Department of Materials who led the team. 'We now need to deal with the challenge of coupling these pairs together to build a scalable quantum computer in silicon.'

In recent years quantum entanglement has been recognised as a key ingredient in building new technologies that harness quantum properties. Famously described by Einstein as "spooky action at distance" -- when two objects are entangled it is impossible to describe one without also describing the other and the measurement of one object will reveal information about the other object even if they are separated by thousands of miles.

Creating true entanglement involves crossing the barrier between the ordinary uncertainty encountered in our everyday lives and the strange uncertainties of the quantum world. For example, flipping a coin there is a 50% chance that it comes up heads and 50% tails, but we would never imagine the coin could land with both heads and tails facing upwards simultaneously: a quantum object such as the electron spin can do just that.

Dr Morton said: 'At high temperatures there is simply a 50/50 mixture of spins pointing in different directions but, under the right conditions, all the spins can be made to point in two opposing directions at the same time. Achieving this was critical to the generation of spin entanglement.'
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some day one of these computers will wake up up..and say "Let there be Light"

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