Today, Intel has made progress in a technology called spintronics that will reduce chip size by five times and energy consumption by up to 30 times in the future.

Current computer chips use micro-switches (transistors) to process data. Spintronics can accomplish similar tasks, but components are smaller and more energy-saving. Spin is a basic property of quantum mechanics. Electrons move like miniature magnets, with Arctic and Antarctic poles. They store or process data by changing the direction of the magnetic field.

For decades, chips have relied on a technology called CMOS. With the size of components approaching the size of a single atom, the development of chips is severely limited.

Researchers at the University of California at Intel have studied the spin properties of multiferrous materials, known as MESO. Compared with CMOS transistors, MESO chips require much lower energy consumption because they do not require electricity to maintain information and provide more energy-efficient dormancy in idle time, the researchers said.