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Is magnetic memory for real? - Russian scientist Shimon Gendlin demonstrates magnetic memory device - Technology Information

Electronic News, Oct 27, 1997 by Gale Morrison

New York--A Russian emigre scientist brought a 128MB magnetic memory device to Electronic News' editorial office here last week, demonstrated the leapfrogging non-volatile memory storing files via his Toshiba laptop, and with his interpreter described the billion-dollar possibilities from this and other prototypes he has developed.

The scientist, Shimon Gendlin, may hold, in the sense of magnetic memory science available at prices anyone can afford, a holy grail. He described the device as thin films of a combination of Cobalt and Gold over a polysilicon substrate; the "metal spin transistors" he says can withstand 200 degrees Celsius temperatures and are produced with standard fabrication equipment.

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Strangely, U.S. researches into magnetic memory have never heard of Shimon Gendlin, or Kappa Numerics, the Israeli R&D house for whom he worked. But, the fact that he, using technology that Kappa claims it owns, fabricated a 128MB non-volatile part and is ready to sell these and more in OEM quantities for about $1,000 per Gigabyte drew near-gasps and several incredulous statements.

The president of flash memory lead player SanDisk was aghast, and skeptical. Eli Harari likened this to "someone telling you he can fly at one and a half times the speed of light." Dr. Daughton said, "God, I'd be surprised . . . That sounds about five years ahead of where anybody is right now."

Until now, Dr. Gendlin says he was barred from speaking on his work under an injunction that Kappa Numerics obtained from a Delaware court. Dr. Gendlin's own Coral Gables, Fla.-based attorneys last year convinced the court to lift the ban and then the scientist filed the U.S. patent for it, he said.

Here Comes The Quantum

Dr. Gendlin says he is ready to commercialize this "Quantum" technology. Quantum is the term he uses, perhaps to avoid using the term magnetic memory which would get closer to the words used in existing patents. The two principals of Kappa Numerics to whom EN spoke were incensed by discussions of Dr. Gendlin commercializing the work, saying "everything he says is incorrect" and that they would prosecute.

NRL researcher and magnetic memory expert Dr. Gary Prinz placed this device technology in perspective. The theory behind it is "50 years or older" and this in fact was the way computers originally held data; he recalled purchasing (very expensive) "DEC 11s, DEC 8s" in the 1960s which used magnetic, non-volatile memory. In the 1970s, semiconductor memories altogether displaced magnetic memory because it was so much more practical to make in commercial volumes. The government's funding in these magnetics therefore died down, and so did academic research and industry's engineering of it.

Still, the NRL has projects ongoing at IBM, Motorola and Honeywell, he said, because the Department of Defense wants that. Dr. Prinz has seen the interest and investment in magnetic memory become "fast and furious," a veritable "bee hive."

IBM recently purchased patents from a German concern and Watson researcher Bill Gallagher is leading Big Blue's charge in the area. "Motorola (under Herb Goronkin in Phoenix) has the broadest investigation," he said, and Honeywell continues to make special, extremely durable magnetic memories for its DoD customers, a fact Honeywell researcher Jerry Granley confirmed. Non-Volatile Electronics of Minneapolis, under Jim Daughton, is a commerical spin-off from Honeywell.

Gendlin Holds The Patents

Nevertheless, U.S. patent numbers 5,673,220 (issued Sept. 1997), 5,602,791 (issued Feb. 1997) and 5,390,142 (issued May 1995)--all three entitled "Memory Material and Method for its Manufacture"--list Shimon Gendlin of Jerusalem, Israel, as their inventor and Kappa Numerics of Guiderland, and New York, N.Y., as their holding "agents." (It should be noted that all three are accessible on the Web server that IBM maintains.) From his testimony and a glimpse of the injunction paperwork, Dr. Gendlin was not in Kappa's employ when any of the patents were issued, but perhaps when they were filed.

Once he demonstrated the 128MB device, Dr. Gendlin discussed the far-reaching implications like 200GB diskless hard drives, 128MB of non-volatile memory embedded in logic processors, and super-resolution holographs that can be focused off this material. The Quantum technology he attributed not just to himself but to "scientists in SVG" and said it "is based on the new metal spin transistors and the recently-discovered magnetic quantum-optical effect in polycrystalline silicon."

The potential for this route to magnetic memory goes beyond the billions of dollars a company might sell in non-volatile RAM made from it, he reiterated. The applications in display, of which he says he has prototypes, could mean notebook flat panels with 240,000 pixels per square millimeter and, even wilder, holographic, 3-D images created by bouncing polarized light off the material.

Oleg Tchernoukhin, Dr. Gendlin's interpreter and business manager, said one of Dr. Gendlin's companies, Compu-Technics, will sell a prototype 3-inch module, that can be "stitched" together as is done with other flat panels, for about $400. As of last week, he was looking into obtaining booth space at this fall's Comdex in Las Vegas.

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Is magnetic memory for real? - Russian scientist Shimon Gendlin demonstrates magnetic memory device - Technology Information

Electronic News, Oct 27, 1997 by Gale Morrison

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