Technology

Nanotechnology and the MRAM

Technology is now synonymous with evolution. The rapid pace attained by the technological innovations definitely has pulverized the luxurious aspirations of mankind. The spontaneity of innovations has placed the human race always on the track pursuing a rapacious advancement to cuddle the ammunitions man is subdued to, that beyond doubt has rather a mesmerizing effect on those who are entirely unsullied in this advancing world. With the advent of nanotechnology, the conundrum of intrusive investigation has divulged a new-fangled technique propelled by the ferocity of desires and sumptuous motivation that galvanizes with necessities and the primitive recquirements of common man.
Nanotechnology has set the pace of technological conquest on a rigorous scale. It actually characterizes a methodical design, production, application of structures, controllers, devices the size adjudged at the nanoscale. The term is not confined to any particular field as it finds its applications relatively in any scientific field associated with manufacturing and production alongside physics, biology etc. dealing with nanostructures’. The reduction to nanoscale will reflect even an entire digression of the properties of the material that they reflect on macroscale. One example is gold. Gold like all other metals are good conductors of heat and electricity and are almost solid at room temperature with high malleability and ductility. The melting point of gold is at 1060 degree centigrade. But the nanoscale property of gold figures a diversified state. When reduced to nanoscale, the solid form of gold turns into liquid at room temperature. This is called the quantum size effect according to which quantization of energy for the electrons in solid becomes relevant after the size barrier is kaput. The atomic force microscope and Scanning tunneling microscope are the two versions of scanning probes that launched nanotechnology. Ever since, a future manufacturing technology based on molecular machine systems came into picture.
The information and communication field had also its distinctive maturity with the influx of nanotechnology. The critical length scale of the integrated circuits is already at the nanoscale also considering the gate length of transistors in CPU and DRAM devices. But one of the most significant memory inventions of the decade is the development of magnetoresistive random access memory or Mram set to displace hard discs and flash memory in the near future.
On dissembling a desktop computer, the most significant component that the computer needs that justifies its performance and enhances its versatility is the Random access memory (RAM). It is a type of computer memory that can be accessed randomly that is any byte of the memory can be accessed without touching the preceding bytes (1 byte is 8 bits) .It is in fact an equipment that stores data to be accessed in any order-at random .Computers or processors use RAM to hold the program code and data .Thus increasing RAM is improving performance. There are two types of RAM, dynamic( DRAM) and static ( SRAM) of which the former is the most common one inspite of the requirement to refresh it thousands of times in a second and the latter being very expensive as it eliminates the above drawback. But RAM is in fact a short term memory. Reading and writing data to RAM can be done extremely quickly. But it is volatile, which means it needs constant power to save the data and any obstruction in the supply would cause great harm. In spite of maintaining data indefinitely by some RAM chips when there is a power failure, it is typically erased when there is a computer shutdown. Flash memory found its application henceforth.
Flash memory is non-volatile as it does not need power to maintain the information stored in it. It is electrically erasable and can be reprogrammed. It is quite predominant in cases when a significant amount of non volatile solid storage is needed as in portable devices like mp3 players and cameras. Although flash memory offers random access read and programming operations, it cannot offer random access rewrite or erase operations. Compared to hard disk drives, the option to erase and rewrite in the flash memory is limited due to which utmost consideration should be taken when the entire hard-drive based applications or operating systems as such is moved into flash memory based devices. It means Flash can only be written to some fixed number of times before it must be replaced. It is also quite slow to write into and can wear out after a definite period.
Nanotechnology unleashed an innovative elucidation on these subsisting predicaments of volatility and slow writing of data. The solution was MRAM or magnetoresistive Random access memory. Mram stores data magnetically, the same way a hard drive does. It is a non volatile memory technology that protects data in the event of power loss and does not require periodic refreshing. It is much faster and suffers no degradation over time in comparison to Flash memory. With smaller components packed onto a single chip, more can be produced from a single silicon wafer (integrated circuit memory) thereby directly affecting the cost. It allows single memory solution to replace multiple memory options within one chip, thus a more cost effective solution. The access time in Mram devices as demonstrated by the scientists is in the order of 2 nano seconds, somewhat better than the new advanced DRAM built with the latest technology. An Mram chip does not posses a battery unlike its predecessor. In fact the existing structure of Mram does not allow it to work until it comes in a radio frequency field thereby energizing it and have to work rapidly before the chip goes out of the field. Within this short span, there got be a wireless propulsion followed by external contacts and protocols to move through and read and write data. Mram combines the high speed of SRAM and the high component density of DRAM to store great amounts of data thus enabling it to access faster and more durability.
The concept of a fully automatic and digital 21st century house is now not a distant dream as already the major corporations like Microsoft , APPLE have entered this fray. With the entry of MRAM into the technological arena, the possibility has further flourished. Nanotechnology substantially will play a major role to assimilate the prerogatives the present century requires thus a further revolution and innovation in this industry cannot be ruled out. With holographic disks, that has the capacity to store terabytes of data and a speed of Megabytes, in combination with MRAM and is further innovations the digital world will further rumble, thus an elucidation on the concept of quantum computers, using quantum algorithms and low layered nanosytem, there by developing a super fusion heated computer at the core of the planet at 1.1 million degrees would become a distant reality. But as Karl Marx quotes “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people”. What about all those things that find no significance to the common man at all?

Shereen Vijayan Kottikkal