IBM puts another nail in the hard drive coffin.
8th December 2011
The first real-world tests of a new memory chip technology called ‘Racetrack’ have been revealed by IBM. It is said the technology promises faster data access speeds than is possible using hard drives or flash disks and could possibly replace both.
The scientists noted that although the technology uses nanowire, 15 – 20 nanometres wide (A nanometre is a billionth of a metre), the circuitry involved was created using IBM's standard microchip-making technologies, highlighting its potential as a realistic replacement to existing memory storage techniques.
Racetrack is also more durable than current flash memory, it can be written to millions of time as opposed to current flash memory which can become unreliable after 100,000 writes.
The upshot of this could be more reliable faster storage for computers / laptops. Traditional hard drives have moving parts and use a lot of power, newer flash hard drives are slow but use little power and space. This technology could replace both and provide increased speed and reliability.