Applications of bubble devices

The applications of magnetic bubbles that are currently seen as most attractive and the current status of development of such devices are considered. A major application is thought to occur in solid-state mass memories. An attractive form of organization is possible whereby relatively short access times can be achieved while using only a small number of read and write circuits. A repertory dialer memory, which has been chosen as a test vehicle, has been developed. The design and performance of the propagating circuits, the self-latching magnetic gates and the generator, which comprise the memory, are discussed. A novel area of application may be in pulse code modulation (PCM) switching networks. It is shown how a network operating as a PCM crossbar switch can be designed using bubbles. A circuit is described which can eliminate the delay associated with bubble propagation in such networks.