Tuesday, November 01, 2005
US co develops nanotube chips
Future computers may require no time to boot up, thanks to carbon nanotube memory chips.
Nantero, the company which is developing these chips, presented its achievement at the Emerging Technologies Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nature magazine reported.
The new technology uses rolled-up tubes of carbon to make transistors, the on-off switches that carry digital information inside computing chips: strings of the nanotubes move up and down to represent the ones and zeroes of binary code.
But unlike the electrons in normal electrical transistors, these nanotubes stay in place even when a computer is turned off, Nature said.
Nantero has been working on the idea for years. Now they say they have made ground in the manufacturing process, pushing the chips closer to market.
The company, the magazine says, has succeeded in making circular wafers, 13 centimetres in diameter, that hold 10 gigabits of data. These are much bigger than equivalent memory cards used today.
But Greg Schmergel, chief executive officer of Nantero, was quoted as saying the nanotube chips are ten times faster than 'flash' cards, which are some of the swiftest ones now available.
Nantero, the report said, calls its technology NRAM, which is loosely short for nanotube-based, non-volatile random access memory.
Non-volatile components, which by definition keep all data even when the power is turned off, are currently on the market in the form of flash memory cards. These hold electrons in insulated cells to act as ones and zeroes. They can be found in many portable gadgets, from MP3 players to digital camera memory cards.
Schmergel was quoted by Nature as saying that his chips could come in handy on space ships.
The radiation in outer space can interfere with the electrons that store data in flash memory devices, so they have to be protected by lead. NRAM avoids this problem, providing the same computing power with much less bulk to loft into orbit.
The design, says Nature, involves suspending nanotube ribbons between points above a silicon chip, so that they form tiny bridges over electrodes lying below. When a charge is applied, the nanotube bridge curves downwards to touch the electrode. This deformation of the nanotube bridge remains even when the power is turned off.
Schmergel says that his firm is currently working with manufacturers such as LSI Logic. These companies have swapped some steps in the production of ordinary transistors for laptop computers for steps that make nanotube chips instead.
Nantero, the company which is developing these chips, presented its achievement at the Emerging Technologies Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nature magazine reported.
The new technology uses rolled-up tubes of carbon to make transistors, the on-off switches that carry digital information inside computing chips: strings of the nanotubes move up and down to represent the ones and zeroes of binary code.
But unlike the electrons in normal electrical transistors, these nanotubes stay in place even when a computer is turned off, Nature said.
Nantero has been working on the idea for years. Now they say they have made ground in the manufacturing process, pushing the chips closer to market.
The company, the magazine says, has succeeded in making circular wafers, 13 centimetres in diameter, that hold 10 gigabits of data. These are much bigger than equivalent memory cards used today.
But Greg Schmergel, chief executive officer of Nantero, was quoted as saying the nanotube chips are ten times faster than 'flash' cards, which are some of the swiftest ones now available.
Nantero, the report said, calls its technology NRAM, which is loosely short for nanotube-based, non-volatile random access memory.
Non-volatile components, which by definition keep all data even when the power is turned off, are currently on the market in the form of flash memory cards. These hold electrons in insulated cells to act as ones and zeroes. They can be found in many portable gadgets, from MP3 players to digital camera memory cards.
Schmergel was quoted by Nature as saying that his chips could come in handy on space ships.
The radiation in outer space can interfere with the electrons that store data in flash memory devices, so they have to be protected by lead. NRAM avoids this problem, providing the same computing power with much less bulk to loft into orbit.
The design, says Nature, involves suspending nanotube ribbons between points above a silicon chip, so that they form tiny bridges over electrodes lying below. When a charge is applied, the nanotube bridge curves downwards to touch the electrode. This deformation of the nanotube bridge remains even when the power is turned off.
Schmergel says that his firm is currently working with manufacturers such as LSI Logic. These companies have swapped some steps in the production of ordinary transistors for laptop computers for steps that make nanotube chips instead.
