bubble memory

bubble memory
—n
	computing a method of storing high volumes of data by the use of minute pockets of magnetism (bubbles) in a semiconducting material: the bubbles may be caused to migrate past a read head or to a buffer area for storage

bubble memory definition

A storage device built using materials such as gadolinium gallium garnet which are can be magnetised easily in only one direction. A film of these materials can be created so that it is magnetisable in an up-down direction. The magnetic fields tend to join together, some with the north pole facing up, some with the south.
When a veritcal magnetic field is imposed on this, the areas in opposite alignment to the field shrink to circles, or 'bubbles'. A bubble can be formed by reversing the field in a small spot, and can be destroyed by increasing the field.
Bubble memory is a kind of non-volatile storage but EEPROM, Flash Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory and ferroelectric technologies, which are also non-volatile, are faster.
["Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present", V 4.0.0, John Bayko , Appendix C]
(1995-02-03)