Tomorrow is Today

Revolutionary Chip Architecture Leverages Quantum Effects, Potentially Increasing Computing Power 1,000,000x

Unlike traditional integrated circuits, which consist of a collection of miniature transistors operating on a single piece of semiconductor, the so-called “spin logic circuits” utilize the quantum physics phenomenon of spin, a fundamental property of the electron.

In spintronic devices, information is stored (written) into spins as a particular spin orientation (up or down).

“What we’ve developed is a device that can be configured in a logic circuit that is capable of performing all the necessary Boolean logic and can be cascaded to develop sophisticated function units,” said …one of the paper’s authors. “We are using ‘spintronic’ logic devices to successfully perform the same operations as a conventional CMOS circuits but with fewer devices and more computing power.”

The spin-logic circuits are created with magnetoresistive bipolar spin-transistors…

The new logic family, which takes advantage of the magnetic properties associated with electron spin, could result in a computer 1 million times more power-efficient than those on the market today, the researchers believe. While that achievement is optimistic and could take a decade to realize, “We think this is potentially groundbreaking,” Friedman said.

(via Toward achieving 1 million times increase in computing efficiency | KurzweilAI)