SWAN-on-chip: advancing spintronic technologies to the market

May 4, 2023

Data is increasingly the currency of modern society. The collection, processing and transmission is an essential part of the emerging ‘smart’ paradigms, where collected data optimises and enhances performance in a range of key areas, from healthcare and industry to mobility and energy. This data is often harnessed by billions of sensor nodes, which form part of a wireless sensor network. It is of vital importance that the sensor nodes can operate at low power as the carbon footprint associated with having 200+ billion IoT edge devices by 2030 has been estimated to be as large as 1000 MtCO2-eq/year.

At the same time, spintronics is an emerging technology which has been used in key functionalities associated with wireless sensor networks. By harnessing the spin of an electron, spintronic devices have already shown potential as sensors, energy harvesters, and radiofrequency sources.

In the SWAN-on-chip project, several ‘spin-chips’ will be designed to validate the Spintronics Wireless Autonomous Node concept, by integrating spintronic devices with conventional tailored integrated circuits. As well as benchmarking the individual spin-chips, the SWAN-on-chip project aims to create a European-level ‘spintronics technology accelerator’ by bringing together actors from theory, materials, nanofabrication, electrical engineering and industry, with the goal of advancing spintronic technologies to the market.

You can follow the updates of this project on the website: https://www.swanonchip.eu/