It's only a matter of time before microchip production as we know it disappears entirely, at least for leading-edge tech designs. Either via new materials applied to trusted techniques (such as carbon coating/nanotubes) or entirely new and exotic fabrication technologies, we're rapidly approaching the limits of traditional silicon-based microchips. One solution to the problem, as it stands, might be found in spintronics - an interesting concept which bases processing and data retention not simply on whether current is being applied to a given transistor (as is the case for current silicon chips), but on a property of electrons called spin. Crucially, changing the magnetic orientation of electrons requires but a single charge, instead of a continued supply of power - which allows for much lower power consumption and heat output, two of the encroaching, limiting factors for the usual chips.Researchers at MIT and at Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated such an approach. Using hydrogen atoms, they've been able to create a spintronic device that has survived more than 2,000 write cycles (a far cry from the usual handful of attempts sustained by the approach when researchers were using oxygen atoms, which are much bigger in molecular terms than hydrogen is). This could allow for processing materials that retain their last state without any additional power requirements - when the workload requires them to be in the other, polar state, a tiny charge is then applied, and the cycle repeats. Essentially, the intention is "trying to make a magnetic analog of a transistor," which can be turned on and off repeatedly without degrading its physical properties.

"When you pump hydrogen toward the magnet, the magnetization rotates," said graduate student Aik Jun Tan, with the MIT team. "You can actually toggle the direction of the magnetization by 90 degrees by applying a voltage - and it's fully reversible." Since the orientation of the poles of the magnet is what is used to store information, this means it is possible to easily write and erase data "bits" in spintronic devices using this effect.