Memory - Page 8

Researchers from the University of Nottingham are studying a new antiferromagnetic spintronic material - tetragonal CuMnAs. They say that this new material enables new device structure designs that combine Spintronic and nanoelectronic functionality - at room temperature.

An antiferromagnet is a material in which electron spin on adjacent atoms cancel each other out - and so it was considered unsuitable for Spintronics applications. However it was recently discovered that these materials have a physical phenomena that can enable memory and sensing applications.

Samsung Electronics launched a new global research outreach program aimed towards STT-MRAM innovation. The Samsung Global MRAM Innovation (SGMI) is looking for colleges, universities and research labs from all over the world to explore breakthrough and innovative STT-MRAM research.

Samsung invites submissions for novel ideas on STT-MRAM research - and the selected proposals will receive financial support from Samsung (around $70,000 to $150,000 for one year programs). The deadline for submission is September 28, 2013.

More information over at Samsung's SGMI page

Researchers from the University of Delaware confirmed that electrons generate a magnetic field. In materials made from two layers of a heavy metal and a ferromagnetic material, the spin current diffuses into the ferromagnetic material. When this happens, a magnetic field is generated.

This magnetic field does not radiate beyond the ferromagnetic material (unlike regular magnetic fields). This is important in applications such as MRAM in which shielding the magnetic fields between memory cells is difficult. If devices use the new magnetic field it may be easier to create high density MRAM cells or other devices.

Researchers from the US Ames Laboratory in collaboration with Iowa State University and Greece's University of Crete have developed a new way to switch magnetism that is at least 1000 times faster than current technologies. The new technology uses all-optical quantum methods. Magnetic memory switching is used in hard drives and MRAM and this new technology will enable terahertz (or faster) memories.

The new switching technology uses short laser pulses to change the magnetic structure (from anti-ferromagnetic to ferromagnetic ordering) in colossal magnetoresistive materials (CMRs). Current technologies use thermal magnetic switching, which makes it difficult to exceed gigahertz speeds. CMR materials however do not require heat to trigger switching. Those materials however are highly responsive to external magnetic fields. In these materials switching occurs by manipulating spin and charge quantum mechanically.

On Thursday April 4 (10:00 local time, Finland's Aalto University), Dr. Reinoud Lavrijsen from the Eindhoven University of Technology will give a seminar on 'Shifting Spintronics into the Third Dimension'. Dr. Reinoud will give an introduction to Spintronics and will also talk about his work with researchers from Cambridge on 3D spintronics chips.

Two German universities (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz - JGU, and the University of Kaiserslautern) are collaborating on two Spintronics commercialization research projects (with a combined budget of €3.8 million).

The first project is the establishment of STeP (Spintronic Technology Platform) in Rhineland-Palatinate, which is designed to boost magnetic coating systems R&D. The main focus of the STeP research is into Heusler materials. This new collaboration means that academic research is being immediately transferred onto an industrial production line.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK have developed the world's first 3D microchip, based on Spintronics technology. The chip basically uses atoms to store and transfer the data - and not electronic transistors. This may lead to 3D MRAM chips that have a large memory density - thousands of times larger than what's available today.

To create this chip they used sputtering - effectively making a sandwich on a silicon chip of cobalt, platinum and ruthenium atoms. The cobalt and platinum atoms store the digital information in a similar way to how a hard disk drive stores data. The ruthenium atoms act as messengers, communicating that information between neighboring layers of cobalt and platinum. Each of the layers is only a few atoms thick.

Everspin announced that they are now sampling the world's first first ST (Spin Torque) MRAM chip. The EMD3D064M is a 64Mb DDR3 device, and select customers are already evaluation samples. Everspin is currently targeting the enterprise SSD market, to complement flash memory. Everspin is manufacturing the ST-MRAM chips on its 200mm production line in Chandler, Arizona and are working to establish 300 mm MRAM tools and additional fab capacity. The company expects the EMD3D064M to become available in 2013.

Everspin's proprietary Spin-Torque technology uses a spin-polarized current for switching. Data is stored as a magnetic state versus an electronic charge, providing a non-volatile memory bit that does not suffer wear-out or data retention issues associated with Flash technology. The EMD3D064M 64Mb ST- MRAM is functionally compatible with the industry standard JEDEC specification for the DDR3 interface, which delivers up to 1600 million transfers per second per I/O, translating to memory bandwidth of up to 3.2 GBytes/second at nanosecond class latency. The product is offered in an industry standard WBGA package aligned with the DDR3 standard.

Intel is proposing a new neuromorphic chip design concept that uses multi-input lateral spin valves (LSV) and memristors. Using these two devices in a cross-bar switch lattice, one can build a neuromorphic CPU. The LSVs are the neurons and the memristors are the synapses.

Theoretically such a chip could hold buillions of neurons and synapses and operate in the in the gigahertz or terahertz range. The device will also be quite efficient - about 300 times more efficient than CMOS equivalents.

Researchers from the Helmholtz Center in Berlin developed a new magnetic valve that can be used for data storage or information processing. The new structure allows an indefinite number of re-write cycles.

The researchers created a defined anisotropy with two thin, stacked ferromagnetic layers: they wanted to create a structure in which a magnetic characteristic within the material changes in a well defined way. They added a third non-magnetic layer (made of Tantalum) between the two layers, which made the whole structure behave like a spin valve.