Power Efficiency of Computer Can be Enhanced Using Multiferroics, UCLA

A team of U.S. researchers used a new class of magnetic materials called multiferroics to improve computer processing. They have demonstrated that multiferroics can be used to generate spin waves that could reduce wasted heat and increase power efficiency of electronic devices .

The study by researchers at University of California, Los Angeles promises to make future devices more energy-efficient. Researchers used multiferroics that lower the energy consumption of logic device and boost the power efficiency for processing by up to 1,000 times.

Ever wondered why your laptops and Smartphones get heated while using? The heat is the energy wasted by the microprocessors in the device.

The current devices have microprocessors that use electric current. This current moves across the transistors, which act like very small electronic switches. Since the current involves movement of electrons, its flow across the circuit produces heat and warms the device.

Also, the transistors leak electrons, meaning that it is difficult to turn them off.

Logic devices are a type of circuit embedded on a computer chip. The multiferroic magnetic material used by the engineering team significantly drops the consumption of power by such logic devices. Also, by applying alternating voltage, the multiferroic can be switched on or off. The materials carry the power as a cascade through material via the spins of electrons. Researchers call this process as spin wave bus.

A good analogy for spin waves is an oceanic wave. The water molecules in an ocean wave are essentially in the same place but the energy is transmitted through the water, according to the researchers. Similarly, electric current can be thought of as water flowing through a pipe.

"Spin waves open an opportunity to realize fundamentally new ways of computing while solving some of the key challenges faced by scaling of conventional semiconductor technology, potentially creating a new paradigm of spin-based electronics," principal investigator Kang L. Wang, UCLA's Raytheon Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Western Institute of Nanoelectronics (WIN) said in a statement.

In this study, the researchers successfully demonstrated that with the help of multiferroic material, they could produce spin waves that efficiently reduced the waste heat and enhanced the power efficiency by 1,000 times.

"Electrical control of magnetism without involving charge currents is a fast-growing area of interest in magnetics research," said co-author Pedram Khalili, a UCLA assistant adjunct professor of electrical engineering. "It can have major implications for future information processing and data-storage devices, and our recent results are exciting in that context."

The study was documented in the journal Applied Physics Letters.