Communications of the ACM
Computing with Magnetic 'Tornadoes'
A new technology that takes advantage of swirling vortices of magnetism could drastically reduce the power consumption of computers.
Credit: Engineering.com
University of Sheffield researchers are developing new technology that could dramatically reduce the power consumption of computers.
Sheffield's Tom Hayward and Ph.D. student Khalid Omari note in the wires of magnetic materials, magnetism can form swirling "tornadoes" of magnetism called magnetic vortex domain walls. "In our simulations we use vortices where the magnetism turns clockwise to represent '0' and vortices where it turns anticlockwise to represent '1,' allowing us to encode binary data," they say. "The vortices are then flowed through the wires using and interacted with carefully defined features in the wires that recreate the function of logic gates."
The researchers believe a computer built around this technology could be much more power-efficient than conventional systems. "We have demonstrated an entirely new way of both storing and processing information," Hayward says. "We're now looking forward to moving towards experimental prototypes, and exploring whether we can make real devices that are much more power-efficient than those in current computers."
The next step in the project is to produce prototypes of the logic gates, and to examine whether they can be made smaller and capable of faster operation.
From University of Sheffield
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