Personally, I can’t stand the sound of someone wearing flip-flops but I might like those from NEC. These are actually new circuit components that flip or flop a signal. Digital bits that are on or off are the basis of computing, at least on a very basic level. So what’s different about the NEC circuit? The magnetic bits can be flipped or flopped and stay in that state even when there’s no power available to the circuit. The Register sums it up best as this development offers the “basis for a system-on-a-chip part that can be completely powered down yet still retain data.”
Today we can put circuits and memory in a low-power sleep state to retain data, but even at a trickle, that still uses some juice. If we can do eventually do the same for circuits with no power, I’m all for it. Unless NEC adds that annoying “flippy-floppy” sound, that is.
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