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Buckminsterfullerene Strikes Again - Nanotube RAM
putaro writes "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?"
Someone should be able to make a decent mp3 player with this stuff...
Is there anything nanotubes CAN'T do? It seems like new uses are being discovered for them every day.
Though the idea of using a material that burns when exposed to a camera flash, for storage, is a little unnerving... Anyone know how they plan to address that and other problems/inherent properties of nanotubes?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
"At the moment, Nantero has only a working prototype. But the firm aims to have memories on the market within a year."
A lot shorter than ten years, hopefully. Though I'm skeptical we'll see them commercially available within a year...
I hope it would be compatable with existing memory systems, though. It would be nice to just swap out existing RAM for a NanoRAM module and get an instant performance and capacity boost (Providing the controllers don't become an issue, but that's where AMD's 64-bit chip and it's built in memory conntroller come in!).
=Smidge=
Bitter... No, not me.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Given the description of how it works, I wonder if it will be inherently less durable against electric shock than current hardware. We've heard the advantages, it'll be interesting to hear what the disadvantages might be. Things like failure rate and recovery methods come to mind. Definetly worth watching though!
Ryan Fenton
you can't upgrade the memory speed beyond what your entire CPU supports -- you have to upgrade your entire CPU. Which means AMD has to redesign the CPU to take advantage of faster (or different types of) memory. And Opterons aren't that cheap yet...
Not so. The opteron has 3 hypertransport busses which can be connected to alternate memory controllers - the onboard one is then disabled. What I want to know is whether AMD plans to maintain separate part numbers for each speed/controller combo, or if they're just going to band them, with higher clocked Opterons getting faster memory.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You couldn't even track it by user at the OS level (user a has memory x and y allocated, so user b can't use that.) because I could still boot it into a different OS through a removable drive...
Of course, you could just eliminate all caches of keys or passwords... But do you really want to have to re-enter your slashdot password everytime you hit refresh, or click on a link to the comments page, or click to read a reply?
Maybe the solution would be to specify a certain area of RAM that would get initialized on power-up (be it a reboot or just waking up from an NVRAM suspend), and get apps to put any sensitive information in that area... Which would probably require additions to your favorite OS's API, in addition to new versions of a lot of apps...
Just thinking 'out loud' here... Anybody else thought about this?
It's a very cool idea, but I'm wondering why they didn't mention these issues. Is it an unmentioned limitation of the technology, or a limitation of the Economist's journalistic scope?
Of course, Silicon RAM is to NanoRAM as a kumquat is to a watermelon
No. Silicon RAM is to NanoRAM as Vacuum tubes are to Silicon. They're both there to do the same thing, it's just that nobody bothers with vacuums (except for a very few special purpose - like audiophiles) because they're old and clunky.
The point is that you would have faster, non-volitile RAM that would fit into existing hardware.
No. The point is that you could easily have so much RAM that it would make retrofitting it into a current system look like putting an spoiler on a model-T.
I'd also imagine that this non-volitile RAM uses next to no power, making it a great potential drop-in replacement for laptops and other portable devices.
Good thinking. Oh, and let's not forget you wouldn't need to spin a disk at 1000s of RPM, which uses some energy as well.
This is not an upgrade. It is a change.
... for 64-bit addressing.
If you have this wonderfully fast and compact memory, the simplest way to exploit it is to access it in a linear manner with a whompin' huge address space.
Who needs VM? -- Actually, we'll still need mechanisms to isolate processes from each other, so virtual addressing will still have a place. But not as a means to accomodate logical address spaces larger than physical address spaces.
I want a fuel-cell powered, IBM 970 Powerbook with buckytube memory and an OLED display. Never mind the power switch, I'll just refuel it every other month or so.
Where do I invest in this nanotube technology. Every 10 seconds these thigns have another use that is lighyears ahead of anything we have now. One day I'll wake up and pull off my Nanotube based dirt proof - tempeture regulated blankets, step out of bed and go to the bathroom where I turn on my nanotube fillament based lights which last 10,000 years. I'll use the nanotube based super computer inside my razor to give me the perfect shave with no razor burn. Then Ill head into the kitchen and pour myself a big bowl of nanotube-crunch...
But seriously, is there anything these thigns can't do? And where can I get a peice of the action?
Mark Brehob
As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."
--When components start getting this small, the chances of having an potential error occur go WAY up. What I'd be interested to see, is what they're doing to protect against stuff like cosmic-ray bit pollution and such.
--After all, if the scale is NANO, one cosmic ray or stray electro/magnetic field can potentially screw up a lot more percentage of memory... Massive redundancy, high speed and constant bit cross-checking would seem to be a reasonable requirement for these chips.
--For just one example, look what a few scratches can do to a CDR - or worse, a DVD. If you can't read it (use it reliably XMillion times) it's basically not very useful...
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== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
I only hope those with the ability will design truly new software systems that will take complete advantage of the new physical systems, and not just apply old methods to it. Inefficient designs of old technologies applied to new technologies have a way of sticking around long after the loss of efficiency is apparent (qwerty layout of typewriters on computers, reversed number pads on keyboards and phones, - only two things to pop into my head at this hour). The parent post is correct in that CPU, sound card, video card, etc. can be replaced, but what are the possible paths of information to human interfaces? And what are other possible human interface designs? And what about the basics; does it still make sense to group binary into bytes of 8 bits? The possibilities are not just "thinking outside the box", it is realizing that you are no longer working with a "box" at all.
I agree. Although there would/could be some immediate advantages to this technology, assuming it can be made compatible with current architectures, I think this technology will take a while to really grab hold. Current bus speeds would leave most of the new found power battling for IO. But if it was affordable, I guess it doesn't matter.
As far as being affordable, have you ever seen a company come out with the next best thing, and not milk it for every dollar for a few years before finally pricing it for Joe's Small Business or Joe Consumer?
If I could wish for anything for this new technology, it would be a competitive marketplace, so maybe I can afford it before 2010.
Why not just have an auxiliary memory bus with another of these modules in a removable cartridge/card/memory stick and have the CPU sync them for the backup? It would certainly be faster than transferring that amount of data in a linear fashion.