Magnetic chips increase computing's energy efficiency

[Plazma Inferno!]

In a breakthrough for energy-efficient computing, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown for the first time that magnetic chips can operate with the lowest fundamental level of energy dissipation possible under the laws of thermodynamics.
The findings mean that dramatic reductions in power consumption are possible—as much as one-millionth the amount of energy per operation used by transistors in modern computers. This is critical for mobile devices, which demand powerful processors that can run for a day or more on small, lightweight batteries.

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-magnetic-chips-energy-efficiency.html

Paper: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/3/e1501492

 

[Q-reeus]

One comment below phyorg main article is spot on:

But at that energy, how fast can they flip those magnetic bits? The problem with low power circuits, generally, is the trade off between power and performance. Will these magnetic circuits be able to perform as well as a desktop computer, while using the power of a cell phone?

Also, at ~ 0.1 um dimensions, such magnets are gigantic by true nano standards. Will this mag-tech still reliably work at true nano scale, where it must go to be future viable?
An imo true genius has proposed what is likely the real way forward - by harnessing the very thing everyone else strives to avoid - noise: https://engineering.tamu.edu/electrical/people/lkish

 

[arfa brane]

That they experimentally confirmed Landauer's limit is pretty cool though.