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HP Labs Creates Densest Memory Chips To Date
Ruger writes "CRN has this article about memory circuits 10 times more dense than today's silicon chips. R. Stanley Williams, director of Quantum Science Research at HP Labs said the high-density memory his team created fits inside a square micron. That's so small that 1,000 of the circuits could fit on the end of a strand of human hair."
Carly and co. want to shed all the research and development departments here in HPC. Every single team has been told to show what they are working on will create a profit for the company within one year, or expect to be downsized. All research has stopped, its all development now. Every group is scrambling to get something published within the next few months, everyone is working on papers to get published at symposiums or mainstream press. Of course, everyone has updated their resumes.
I have to post anonymously because all our jobs are on the line and everyone is living with the fear of getting laid off. Another 10% are going to go soon, every department head has been told to choose their next cuts.
As much as IBM researchers, etc.. would like to believe that silicon will die and be replaced in the near future I doubt it will happen soon. Producing memory with size on the order of a micron is virtually useless. At the moment the limiting factor in the fabrication of integrated circuits are interconnections. Yes! The little pieces of metal that transfer signals around the IC. Currently 90% of delay in an IC is no longer due to the transistor but instead is cause by propagation delay through the transmission line. As it is not possible to fabricate transmission lines that can actually connect to memory as small as is discussed here, I can not see how this memory can be utilized. Does anyone know of interconnect solutions that could be used?
Where the Music Matters
Maybe because a press release saying:
"We've got a hot new product based on bleeding-edge technology!"
sounds a little better than:
"We've got a hot new product, based on technology that we proved physically possible three years ago ago, and have only now managed to make commercially feasable!"