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Nanotube Non-Volatile Memory Entering Production
hovermike writes "Nantero and LSI Logic are expected to announce that nanotube non-volatile memory will be going into production, at least as far as the NY Times is concerned. Nanotubes have been discussed previously, Nanotube Applications..., and Buckminsterfullerene..., but I'm certainly surprised something like this has moved into production this quickly. Could this be the ultimate 'bubble' memory?" Reader hovermike writes "The press release can be found at the Nantero website. I'm looking forward to only needing one memory card to store all the 5Mbit pictures that I'll take for the rest of my life."
I have never understood why companies would release text information exclusively in PDF format. So here you go... and since I learned my lesson about Karma Whoring, I'll post AC. No troll text, I promise.
For Immediate Release Contact: Suzanne Gibbons-Neff
SGN Public Relations & Marketing
(203) 656-0833/ Suzanne@nantero.com
Nantero, Inc. Announces Carbon Nanotube Technology Development Project with LSI Logic
Woburn, MA - June 7, 2004. Nantero, Inc. announced today that it is teaming with LSI Logic Corporation (NYSE: LSI) to develop semiconductor process technology, expediting the effective utilization of carbon nanotubes in CMOS fabrication.
The joint development project is taking place at LSI Logics Gresham (Oregon) manufacturing campus, which is capable of process R&D down to the 65nm node.
The high electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and tensile strength of carbon nanotubes make them highly attractive for electronic device applications. These properties enable performance breakthroughs both through incorporation into existing semiconductor products and in the development of next generation products.
"LSI Logic has all of the necessary ingredients to accelerate the development of carbon nanotubes in CMOS: a strong focus on innovation, a highly qualified engineering team, and a world-class fab, said Greg Schmergel, Nanteros co-founder and CEO. "All of these factors and more makes LSI Logic an ideal partner for us in developing Nanteros carbon nanotube technology for high-volume manufacturing.
Nanteros proprietary processes for the use of carbon nanotubes are CMOS-compatible and are presently under development at LSI Logics Gresham semiconductor manufacturing campus. The LSI Logic facility was recognized by Semiconductor International magazine as Fab of the Year for 2002.
"LSI Logic has and continues to focus its process technology R&D efforts to solving technology challenges, such as the issues associated with low-k dielectrics, said Richard Schinella, LSI Logic vice president of Wafer Process R&D. "Teaming with Nantero, LSI Logic is applying its silicon integration skills to realizing the potential of carbon nanotubes in advanced CMOS manufacturing.
About Nantero
Nantero is a nanotechnology company using carbon nanotubes for the development of next-generation semiconductor devices. Nantero itself is developing NRAM -a high-density nonvolatile random access storage device. The potential applications for the nonvolatile storage device Nantero is developing are extensive and include the ability to enable instant-on computers and to replace the memory in devices such as cell phones, MP3 players, digital
cameras, and PDAs, as well as applications in the networking arena. NRAM can be manufactured for both standalone and embedded memory applications. Nantero is also working with licensees on the development of additional applications of Nanteros core nanotube-based technology.
About LSI Logic
LSI Logic Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading designer and manufacturer of communications, consumer and storage semiconductors for applications that access, interconnect and store data, voice and video. In addition, the company supplies storage network solutions for the enterprise. LSI Logic is headquartered at 1621 Barber Lane, Milpitas, CA 95035. http://www.lsilogic.com
Nantero is creating NRAM, a high-density nonvolatile random access memory chip, which it hopes will replace existing forms of memory. Its technology, using cylindrical molecules of carbon known as nanotubes, will be used on a production line in LSI's semiconductor factory in Gresham, Ore.
Carbon nanotubes are among the new forms of carbon, known as fullerenes, whose discovery helped ignite interest in manipulation of materials at the molecular level, the field known as nanotechnology. Fullerenes consist of carbon atoms arranged in patterns resembling the nodes of the geodesic domes designed by Buckminster Fuller. Nanotubes, which researchers first created in 1991, consist of single- or multiwalled cylinders that can be less than 10 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
The transition from laboratory to production line took more than nine months, the companies said, adding that considerable work remains to improve the chips.
"But it's following the same type of road map as any other semiconductor product," said Norman L. Armour, vice president and general manager of the LSI factory in Gresham. Mr. Armour said that processors embedded with carbon nanotube memories in place of static random access memory, or SRAM, could be supplied commercially from the factory's pilot line next year if no problems developed.
If so, analysts said, such devices could emerge as one of the first products to exploit something other than the extraordinary strength of carbon nanotubes.
The nanotubes are up to 100 times as strong as steel and one-sixth its weight, qualities that have quickly led to their use in products like tennis rackets and automotive plastics, where they are mixed with other materials to improve their performance.
Researchers have also shown that the nanotubes have extraordinary electrical and magnetic characteristics. Recent reports, for example, have highlighted their ability to be quickly altered from metal-like conductors into semiconductors and back by applying magnetic fields.
Such novel qualities have helped make them a powerful symbol of nanotechnology's potential, but except as strengtheners nanotubes have proved difficult to bring to market. The challenges have included preventing clumping and the tendency of the simplest manufacturing approaches to produce mixes of single-walled and multiwalled tubes with varying characteristics.
Nantero's design applies charges to groups of single-walled nanotubes suspended over an electrode. Applying opposite charges to the tubes and the electrode causes the tubes to bend down, creating a junction that represents a 1. Applying like charges forces them apart into the 0 state. As with all digital memory, NRAM stores data as a pattern of 1's and 0's.
Carbon nanotube memories could sharply improve the performance of cellphones, laptop computers and other electronic devices. Like today's flash and SRAM memories, carbon nanotube designs can maintain data when power is turned off, an advantage over dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, memory chips, which must constantly be refreshed. But it can operate considerably faster and on less power than flash memory, and is much cheaper and more compact than SRAM.
Analysts caution that Nantero's carbon nanotubes face plenty of competition. Memories that hold their charge are crucial to improving the performance and design flexibility of a wide range of electronic products, and thus have become the most profitable and fastest-growing segment of the $35 billion memory market, according to Radu Andrei, a Web-Feet Research analyst based in Dallas. That is attracting heavy investment in technologies that could replace flash and SRAM.
"I count around 30 technology variations trying to get a piece of that pie," Mr. Andrei said. Among them are I.B.M., Intel, Motorola and numerous start-ups. Flash memory is now so inexpensive, he added, that innovators will have a hard time displacing it from all but the most demanding applications even if they surpass it technically.
I'm looking forward to only needing one memory card to store all the 5Mbit pictures that I'll take for the rest of my life.
It seems that a 1GB nano-tube based memory card should last the rest of your life. Of course, a silicon-based memory card to last the rest of your life would have to be much larger.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Check out some of these sites:
Nano Dot Article
Tech Review
A neat simulation
WordIQ
These all do a good deal to help explain / show you some interesting things. Give them a look-see.
I'll believe it when the memory futures market nose-dives. If I go to Micro Center, and regular RAM chip prices are down 20% or more across the board, then nanotube memory is DEFINITELY coming to market like, soon.
No, I'm not using the 80's translation server, I really do talk like this... sorry, I lived in the valley in the 80's (when I was little) and it totally warped my speech.
stuff |
hellooooooooo?
(courtesy of morcheeba)
DNA just wants to be free...
This article says 10^12 bits per cm^2. That would bring us to something like 116 GB per cm^2, unless my math is wrong, which it probably is, because that was off the top of my head. Anyway, I think it's more dense than what you estimated. As for hard drives, I don't know, but I have a drive with an areal density in the 34 GB / inch^2 realm, so if they're anywhere near that, this is a huge improvement.
Paper Pusher
There's maybe nothing worse than a bad pun except explaining a bad pun. In for a penny, in for a pound:
In Britain, "pram" is another word for stroller, pushchair, baby carriage, etc. It's short for "perambulator".
A "double-pram" is one of those side-by-side (or front-back) strollers suitable for pushing two children. In this case it's "turbo-charged" (presumably for today's go-faster children).