Mram

[rjshenal]

Hi Everyone...:)

Anyone have any thoughts on the new MRAM (Magnetic Random Access Memory) that is supposed to happen in the near future?

Rjshenal

[killercow]

Magnetic ram... don't you think that might be harmful to the computer. I was always told be the computer lab teacher that if we stuck a magnet on or close to a computer we would loose our computer priveleges. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[rjshenal]

Hi:

I would think that the the magnatism in the memory chips would be so small that nothing would really be affected by it. I really don't know much about it, just found out last week. Maybe someone out there knows more, and are welcome to share their knowledge with us.

rjshenal


:)

[Budfred]

Where did you read about it?? Here is one LINK (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mram.htm) that talks about it, but I saw a bunch of other links in the Google search...

BTW, in case no one has mentioned this yet, posting your email address on an open forum is an invitation to get lots of SPAM, so unless you really enjoy SPAM, you may want to remove it...

[rjshenal]

Hi:

I ran across it on How Stuff Works site.

rjshenal

[rond36]

Originally posted by killercow
Magnetic ram... don't you think that might be harmful to the computer. I was always told be the computer lab teacher that if we stuck a magnet on or close to a computer we would loose our computer priveleges. Correct me if I'm wrong. Your floppy and hard drive(s) store data on magnetic media and opreate using electric motors and the read and write heads are electro magnets. Every fan in a computer spins using magnets so I don't think magnetic RAM would be any more harmful than the other magnetic devices in your computer.

[killercow]

hmmm. yes i forgot about that... shows how much they know.

[saphalline]

Well that's exactly they tell you to keep magnets away from the computer! So much inside depends on highly controlled magnetic fields that introducing a strong random magnetic field might kill the proper operation of the computer. Heck, you can even screw up a monitor or TV by putting a magnet up to it.

MRAM would be yet another internal part relying on controlled magnetic fields, making it even more important to keep external uncontrolled magnets away from the computer.

As to the viability of MRAM, I remain skeptic until they can improve its speed and production costs. Right now, it looks like a nice novelty that would have other uses (I think someone in another thread pointed out having a RAM-disk based on MRAM). MRAM's main advantage vs DRAM is that it doesn't require constant electrical refreshing of the transistors, making it very power efficient.

I think MRAM would work very well in low-power devices and anything else with proper magnetic shielding. It's more attractive than flash memory in terms of power consumption and latency, but DRAM reigns supreme for pure speed.