August 2008

Hitachi and the Tohoku University's Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC) said they developed a new integrated circuit that integrates an arithmetic function and a nonvolatile memory function by using spintronics and Si technologies.

The IC is made by placing a MTJ (magnetic tunnel junction) MRAM device on a Si chip with a MOS transistor. The data transfer rate is faster, and the IC is small using that method.

The idea is that a circuit that combines memory and a arithmetic unit is faster and smaller 

The prototype chip is a full adder composed of the SUM and CARRY blocks. The SUM block measures 15.5 x 10.7?m, and the CARRY block is 13.9 x 10.7?m. The CMOS logic block was formed with Hitachi's 0.18?m process technology.

Read more here (TechOn japan)

University of Utah physicists successfully controlled an electrical current using the "spin" within electrons – a step toward building an organic "spin transistor": a plastic semiconductor switch for future ultrafast computers and electronics.

In the new study, the researchers showed that information can be carried by spins in an organic polymer, and that a spin transistor is possible because "we can convert the spin information into a current, and manipulate it and change it," says Lupton. "We are manipulating this information and reading it out again. We are writing it and reading it."

Boehme says spin transistors and other spin electronics could make possible much smaller computer chips, and computers that are orders of magnitude faster than today's. 

Read more here (Physorg)

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.

At a special morning opening address on October 15, 2008, Dr. Stuart Parkin, a Fellow at IBM’s Almaden Research Laboratory, San Jose, California, will discuss “racetrack memory.” Dr. Parkin, a specialist in “spintronics,” will reveal how racetrack memory may lead to solid-state electronics with no moving parts, capable of holding an unparalleled amount of data.

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