IBM Reinvents Punch Cards

grim_thing writes "I.B.M. scientists say they have created a data-storage technology that can store the equivalent of 200 CD-ROM's on a surface the size of a postage stamp. Writing in the current issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, researchers at I.B.M.'s laboratories in Zurich report that they have achieved a storage density of one trillion bits of data per square inch, about 25 times as great as current hard disks." Reuters also has a story.

Comments

Perhaps not a disk-replacement, but....

[ajs]

So, that would be 120Gb in the size of a postage stamp. Not bad. Even if it takes a long time to write and longer to read back, this could wipe out tape archival for most backup purposes!

Re:One potential security flaw. . .

[sphealey]

What if one's data contains dimpled chads? How will those bits be counted?

The funny thing is when I am done voting I always turn the card over and check for chads. After the Florida thing I mentioned this to my spouse, who gave me one of those "only someone like you would think of doing that". I finally realized it was a result of the many hours spent in front of an IBM 029 keypunch, followed by 4 hours waiting for the card deck to come back from the machine room. When one hanging chad can kill a day's work, you tend to check for such things. But I imagine the percentage of people with that experience is getting lower by the day.

sPh

Re:reliability of millipede?

[Drizzten]

From the article:

The Millipede chip consists of a layer of plexiglass a couple of billionths of an inch thick laid on a silicon chip. To write a bit of data, a microscope tip, heated to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, softens the plexiglass and dents it.

To read data, the tip is heated to 570 degrees -- not hot enough to deform the plexiglass -- and pulled across the surface. When it falls into a dent, the tip cools because more surface area is in contact with the cooler plexiglass. That temperature drop reduces its electrical resistance, which can be easily measured.

To erase data, a hot tip is passed over the dent, causing it to pop up.

Those are pretty high temperatures. Might they affect reliability in the long run? Also, what about the actual lifetime of the plexiglass material they're heating up? How many times can it take the read/write/read/write process? Still, it's a nifty idea. Kudos to IBM.