Once more...

Once more,

Thesis: The functionality of electronics is limited by its principle, which depends solely on the charge carried by electrons. Antithesis: Electronics need not be limited by the charge carried by electrons. Synthesis: Create applications based on properties of electrons other than charge.

The solution is the newly founded science of Spintronics, which depends of the spin of electrons, as opposed to conventional electronics which harnesses just their charge. Spintronics devices store information as a particular orientation of spin, up or down. As spin is a property that makes electrons act as tiny bar magnets, since 1998 hard disk drive heads have been using a spintronics effect called giant magnetoresistance to detect the microscopic magnetic fields on the disk representing the 1s and 0s of the data.

Another spintronics application is a non-volatile memory technology called MRAM – Magenetoresistive Random Access Memory, its non-volatility stemming from the fact that it stores information as magnetisation. It requires far less refresh than conventional DRAM, and its speed is compatible to SRAM (CPU cache memory), and it is likely to lead to more storage in mobile devices with longer battery life.

Freescale Semiconductor, a Motorola spinoff, has been selling MRAM since 2006.Though MRAM is currently very expensive and available only in low densities, and targeted at a few specialised customers, a MRAM disk could be expected sometime around 2010, possibly replacing current hard disks and giving us computers that can be instantly turned on.

Look around yourself. What is your synthesis today?