18th Century Pigment to Revolutionize Chip Design? 100
Scarlet X writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered a possible nonvolatile magnetic semiconductor and are investigating its use for 'spintronics,' an emerging technology that is concerned with manipulating and controlling the charge, flow and magnetism of electrons. The possibilities for the material 'cobalt green,' a paint developed by American Revolution era artists, as a spintronics material is exciting. Should the magnetic properties of the paint at room-temperature prove able to reliably control the wild spinning of excited electrons in a processor, not only could the size of processors reduce substantially, but the constant limiting factor, how to keep things cool, could disappear."
Room temperature != operational temperature. (Score:5, Insightful)
If energy is expended, then the temperature of the component will rise. If the temperature rises, it'll be likely to require cooling. (Especially as more energy gets expended with designs capable of higher computation loads.)
Re:Room temperature != operational temperature. (Score:5, Insightful)
Spintronics is just another tech that might be better than classic electronics. It might end up filling a niche or perhaps a larger part of what is currently done with electronics. But noone (except the people from marketing) is going to garantee that this will be the next revolution.
Article clearly by a non-tech (Score:3, Insightful)
Lesson to all journalists: if you don't know enough to say anything on a subject, don't try to say anything yourself - just report what other people say and you'll be fine. Try to add your own tag-lines, and you'll end up saying something stupid like this.
Grab.