Communications of the ACM
UCLA Engineering Team Increases Power Efficiency For Future Computer Processors
Researchers at UCLA say they used multiferroics to make significantly improve computer processing.
Credit: UCLA Newsroom (CA)
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers say they used an emerging class of magnetic materials called multiferroics to make major improvements in computer processing that could make future devices far more energy-efficient than current technologies.
The researchers used multiferroic magnetic materials to reduce the amount of power consumed by logic devices. A multiferroic can be switched on or off by applying alternating voltage, allowing it to carry power through the material in a cascading wave through the spins of electrons, a process known as a spin wave bus.
A spin wave is similar to an ocean wave, which keeps water molecules in essentially the same place while the energy is carried through the water, as opposed to an electric current, which can be envisioned as water flowing through a pipe, says UCLA professor Kang L. Wang. "Spin waves open an opportunity to realize fundamentally new ways of computing while solving some of the key challenges faced by scaling of conventional semiconductor technology, potentially creating a new paradigm of spin-based electronics," Wang says.
The researchers say they were able to increase power efficiency for processing by up to 1,000 times by using multiferroic material to generate spin waves.
From UCLA Newsroom (CA)
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