UA Physicist’s Predictions Proven True, Leads Industry in New Direction in Quest for Superior Computer Memory

There are no crystal balls visible upon entering Dr. William “Bill” Butler’s office. Yet, theoretical predictions this physicist made in a scientific paper published in 2001 have been verified experimentally and may be key in development of the next generation of computer memory and hard drives.

Recent discoveries, made by Stuart Parkin at IBM and Shinji Yuasa at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, have renewed excitement in the race to refine a new type of magnetic memory, known as MRAM. This new memory could, in principle, one day replace both the computer industry’s standard memory, known as RAM, and the computer’s hard drive, because it can operate as fast as RAM yet is non-volatile like the hard drive.

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