NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and Tohoku University have developed the world’s first technology for improving the reliability of spintronics logic integrated circuits with the intention of reducing the standby power of electronic devices to zero. The behavior of this technology has been verified using a prototype chip.

Spintronics logic integrated circuits use two of the properties of electrons, namely negative charge and spin (the fact that electrons are similar to tiny magnets), to remember the results of calculations by flipping the polarity of these tiny magnets between “north” and “south” according to the direction of an electric current. This technology has become the focus of interest as a semiconductor technology because it has non-volatility, meaning that it can retain data even if the power supply is cut off because data is remembered using magnetic polarity. It is this non-volatility that has the potential to eliminate the power consumed by electronic devices while they are in standby mode.

These technologies use vertical domain wall elements, which have vertical magnetization with respect to a magnetic body. Multiple vertical domain wall elements are loaded for each individual component of a logic integrated circuit, so that there is redundancy in the way that data is remembered. This enables a high level of reliability to be achieved because the data errors that occasionally occur with logic integrated circuits can be detected and corrected.

With this technology, spin elements are connected in a series, which prevents power consumption from increasing and prevents the area of the circuit from becoming larger. These highly reliable circuit components also support automatic placement and wiring, which means that highly reliable non-volatile logic integrated circuits can be designed even without expertise in spintronics technology.

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[NEC Press Contacts (Japan)]

Takehiko Kato

NEC Corporation

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