TechKnowledgey 2004
Harnessing the power of electron spin
is the goal of IBM Fellow Stuart Parkin,
shown with a six-chamber, $5 million
high-vacuum apparatus used to mix
and match nanotech materials
manufacturing techniques and analyze
the results. Photo courtesy of
International Business Machines Corp.
Unauthorized use not permitted.
Stanford University have formed the
IBM-Stanford Spintronic Science and
Applications Center (SpinAps, for
short).
Electron spin is a quantum
property that has two possible states:
“up” or “down.” Aligning spins in a
material creates magnetism.
Moreover, magnetic fields affect
the passage of “up” and “down”
electrons differently. Understanding
and controlling this property is
central to creating a whole new breed
of electronic properties. According to
an IBM spokesman, “SpinAps
researchers will work to create
breakthroughs that could revolutionize
the electronics industry, just as the
transistor did 50 years ago.”
In fact, the technology has
already been put to a few practical
uses. The first mass-produced
spintronic device — introduced in 1997
— is the giant magnetoresistive (GMR)
head developed at the IBM Almaden
lab. This super-sensitive magnetic-field
sensor has enabled a 40-fold increase
in data density over the past seven
years. Another multilayered spintronic
structure is at the heart of the
high-speed, nonvolatile magnetic
random access memory (MRAM)
that is currently being developed by
an IBM-Infineon collaboration and
several other companies.
SpinAps scientists envision
creating new materials and devices
JULY 2004
with entirely new capabilities (e.g.,
reconfigurable logic devices, room-temperature superconductors, and
quantum computers) that would create
dramatic, new computational models.
However, commercial products from
the ongoing research are not expected
for at least five years.
Computers and
Networking
New Mobile Processor from
Intel
Pentium® M processor die. Courtesy of
Intel Corporation.
Intel Corporation ( www.intel.com)
is shipping three new Intel®
Pentium® M processors, aimed at
boosting the performance of Intel
Centrino mobile technology.
Formerly code-named Dothan, the
Intel Pentium M processor models
735, 745, and 7553 are built on Intel’s
high-volume 90 nm manufacturing
process technology, which produces
smaller, faster transistors. They are
manufactured on 300 mm wafers,
which provide more than double the
capacity of the earlier 200 mm
wafers.
Based on Intel’s mobile
micro-architecture, the new processors
are said to boost performance by up
to 17% (as compared with the
previous generation processor), with
2 MB of integrated, power managed,
level 2 (L2) cache, micro-architectural
enhancements, and frequencies up to
2 GHz. With the new processors and
the recently introduced Intel
PRO/Wireless 2200BG network
connection, the technology enables
improved high definition video
playback, faster application
response, better multi-tasking, and
higher bandwidth wireless data
transmission.
Socket-level compatibility with
the previous Pentium M processor
generation allows OEMs to build the
new components into existing system
designs. All three processors support
Enhanced Intel Speedstep®
Technology, which helps optimize
application performance and power
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