IBM makes new bubble memory

IBM has a new non-volatile memory called racetrack memory. To those of us old enough, it sounds just like bubble memory, which they used back in the 1980s. The term I remember about bubble memory was chevrons. That was the little angled electrodes that the “bubbles” of magnetic domains jumped across. This new racetrack memory seems to be the same thing only they use nanowires to transport and retain the bubbles of magnetic domains,. The domains are much smaller than they were with he chevron deal so I am sure the new racetrack memory is more power efficient. The good thing about both types of magnetic memory is that they are non-volatile. The bad thing about both types is that reading the memory erases it so you have to constantly re-write it, just like in the old ferrite core memory days.

I am sure the technical challenges of adapting bubble memory to nanowires was formidable so this really does qualify as a new invention. I just think it is neat to see that just like disk drives are a derivative of the phonograph, racetrack memory is a derivative of the old wire recorders from the 1930s. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose