Here Comes The Buckytube
from the carbon-memories dept
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's been a dream for many years to build "non-volatile" memories which would allow our computers to start in a second. Some companies, like IBM, have taken the magnetic RAM route, while others are experimenting with exotic materials. In this article, The Economist says there is a new contender: carbon. And it describes a new technology from Nantero named NRAM -- the N standing for nanotechnology. "Nantero's memory chips consist of billions of nanotubes [or "buckytubes" after Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes have a framework similar to the arrangement of the atoms in a nanotube], each a few hundred nanometres long, suspended from a silicon wafer. Another wafer sits about 100 nanometres below the first. Because the nanotubes that Nantero uses conduct electricity, a small electric charge at one point on the second wafer will draw several dozen nanotubes towards it. Once they are there, they stay there." This new kind of memory promises to be very fast and very dense. Products should be available next year. Check my blog for more comments and references."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
