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I'm currently using Magneto-RAM in a project. I'm also interested in the development of Carbon Nanotube-based NRAM from Nantero. Density is more important than speed for most NV storage applications. Unless the cost structure and density changes substantially vs Flash ROM, these types of exotic NV RAMs are going to be useful only in situations that require a lot of write accesses: like storing the directory info for a cheaper/larger Flash-ROM array which can't support as many write cycles. Even in these situations the exotic NV RAMs are just a replacement for SRAM and a Battery which is cheaper because the structure, processes and materials are standard.

Graphene has some of the same problems as carbon nanotubes, so while doing basic electrical characterizations of this material are major news right now (that shows you how new this material is), ultimately using this material and convincing the 4 or 5 companies with the capital to have state-of-the-art fab facilities to switch over from silicon-based CMOS technology is looking way, way, WAY into the future.

This technology http://www.nantero.com/mission.html is suppose to be ready some time this year. It use cnt as lever in a small relay. They call their memory nram and it is suppose to be very fast access and non-volatile. There is a video at their site explaining how its memory works.

I wouldn't condemn Nantero to vaporware status just yet - it seems that they've been making progress. Here's a list of their press releases - notice that they successfully fabricated a switch in April and have made their processes compatible with current CMOS fab lines.

1) Bio-panel - a panel that uses algae to produce either hydrogen or bio-deisel oil based
off hybrid algae, a variant replacement for conventional solar panels .

My idea based on already known uses for algae .

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456, 00.html

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

2) Nanite memory - non-volatile ram that is 10 - 20 times faster than current DD2,
and and Ipod could have 10 Tera-bytes of a module the size of a sugar cube .
No power required to maintain the bit state either .

http://www.nantero.com/

3) Growing human organs with the recepients DNA markers on the backs of mice,
already been done, think it through to its full possibilities .

3rd pic down http://www.pbs.org/saf/1107/features/body.htm

4) Next Gen Fuel Cell vehicles .

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.asp?Art_ID=11628

5) LED based wall projectors to reduce electrical power usage world wide .
Imagine all display systems in the world going from 100 wats plus to 1- 3 watts .

http://www.lightblueoptics.com/

6 billion ppl, probably over 2 billion display systems world wide with a over
100 fold reduction in power usage, it could have a major impact . (Tv's, monitors, etc )

Ex-MislTech

This is nothing new at all

I'll grant you that yes, prices have come down recently but surely every geek wants our scientific research budgets spent on a much worthier use for nanotubes.

See Nantero's press releases; they announced their 10Gbit wafer in May 2003. Their partnership with LSI Logic isn't news either, that was announced June 2004. The fact that they're still signing new partnerships on a steady basis tells me this technology is not a dead-end (yet).

NRAM will be considerably faster and denser than DRAM, have substantially lower power consumption than DRAM or flash, be as portable as flash memory, and be highly resistant to environmental forces (heat, cold, magnetism). And as a nonvolatile chip, it will provide permanent data storage even without power. Possible uses include the enabling of instant-on computers, which boot and reboot instantly, as well as high-density portable memory - MP3 players with 1000s of songs, PDAs with 10 gigabytes of memory, high-speed network servers and much more.

The proprietary NRAM design, invented by Dr. Thomas Rueckes, Nantero's Chief Scientific Officer, uses carbon nanotubes as the active memory elements. Carbon nanotubes are members of the fullerene family and have amazing properties, including the ability to conduct electricity as well as copper while being stronger than steel and as hard as diamond. The wall of a single-walled carbon nanotube is only one carbon atom thick and the tube diameter is approximately 100,000 times smaller than a human hair. Dr. Rueckes' pioneering design takes advantage of these unique properties while cleverly integrating nanotubes with traditional semiconductor technologies for immediate manufacturability.

Nantero was earlier with it's nanotube-based mechanical NRAM. They have a nice movie explaining their technology.

Nantero was earlier with it's nanotube-based mechanical NRAM. They have a nice movie explaining their technology.

Nantero was earlier with it's nanotube-based mechanical NRAM. They have a nice movie explaining their technology.

I'm not saying this isn't dificult - but the former is more of a manufacturing challenge where you make incremental improvements to relatively well known structures. Optimizing the efficiency of manufacturing plants and logistics operations of Wal*Mart is also an *EXTREMELY* difficult problems, and yes, I'm sure to some degree Wal*Mart's optimization of these processes could be considered innovative R&D work. But I (or, I think Dell, in the context of this thread) would call this an Engineering Led business.

But mostly I meant the stuff Dell and HP does - find a cheap contract manufacturer, find a cheap chipset, see if Intel or AMD are the better deal of the day, and put them all in a box with a pretty package.

There was a company, nantero, that was/is working on nanoscale RAM. Their site says that it will replace all other types of RAM. Problem is, all dates have been taken down, or else I'm not looking in the right place. I remember a year or so ago they wanted to have this rolled out by some small amount of time, like 2006 or 008, but I can't remember which. Does anybody know more?

Also, it'd be neat if they could base some kind of flash memory technology on this stuff too.

Nantero

I seem to remember that Nantero had a 10Gb working prototype for NRAM. Is this significantly different from what they are doing?
http://www.nantero.com

Right, the concept was that a nanotube can change its orientation when a voltage is applied across it. The company working on this, nantero's, predicts that hundreds of gigabytes could be stored in this way. This scheme technically uses moving parts, albeit on a much smaller scale. Nantero claims that this could replace SRAM, DRAM and mass storage altogether.

"Nanotube based RAM, under development by Nantero, promises to deliver densities of over 1 terabit per cm^2, is non-volatile and faster than current DRAM. The Economist has a nice story. Forget about just kicking DRAM's and FLASH's butt, is this finally the end of magnetic storage as well?"

If they can get this down in price then I guess 20 years of trying to get this new perpendicular recording was just a waste. I'm not going to hold my breath but frankly I think it's high time to get into solid state storage and eliminate once and for all the wrost speed bottleneck on the pc.

Just one more link : a direct link to the Nantero press release (pdf).

For those who are interested, the Nantero's technology is based on earlier work in the lab of Charles M. Lieber. The original paper was published in the journal Science. Rueckes et al, Science, Vol 289, P. 94. Rueckes went on to found Nantero.

The original experiment worked as follows:

One rope of singled walled carbon nanotubes sits suspended above another in a crossbar configuration. When an electric charge is applied, the top nanotube rope bends downward, where it is held in place by van der waals attraction to the bottom rope. To deactivate the switch, another charge is applied to repel the bent nano-rope into its original position.

This electromechanical switch works as a switch because of tunneling of electrons between the upper rope and the lower rope. When the ropes are sticking together, enough electrons tunnel from the upper to the lower, or vice versa so that one can measure a good signal, turning the switch on. When the ropes are apart, the tunneling conductance drops by several orders of magnitude, turning the switch off.

The original experiment was done with bundles of carbon nanotubes. In principle, the concept should work at much higher densities for single nanotubes, but the technology still has hurdles to cross. Currently, the tubes conduct because ropes of tubes are likely to contain both semiconductor type and metal type tubes. Since metal type tubes are fantastic conductors, having even a few of them in a rope will allow a device to work. However, when one crosses the threshold to single nanotubes, the device will only work if the tubes are metal type. Hence, an important problem will be finding a way to produce only metal type single walled nanotubes. Currently, carbon nanotubes are produced in a mixture of semiconductor type and metal type nanotubes. It's difficult to control that property because it depends sensitively on the way the sp2 bonds on the nanotube sidewall line up, something that no one yet knows how to control.

"Nantero, Inc. Creates an Array of Ten Billion Nanotube Bits on Single Wafer Standard Semiconductor Processes Used"

Sounds like the real deal....