Gecko's Feet Power New RAM Chips

An anonymous reader writes "IT Week has a story about carbon nanotubes being used to make memory chips. As the name suggests, carbon nanotubes are extremely small cylinders of carbon, and they have some similar properties to the extremely fine hairs on the feet of Geckos that enable the lizards to climb walls and hang from ceilings. The new chips work faster than current technologies, and hold their data without needing a power source." We've previously discussed this technology.

Comments

Misleading Title

[eldavojohn]

Carbon nanotubes are about 200 times more sticky than the gecko's foot hairs, and their semiconducting nature is being exploited to make memory chips. To put it somewhat crudely, these work by slinging tiny mats of carbon nanotubes between lumps of silicon inside a chip to form very small bridge-like structures.

I didn't see any evidence in this article of the technology coming from inspection of Gecko feet. It appears that these "bucky tubes" where constructed and then someone said, "Oh, look, they're like setae!" I'm highly dubious that anyone studied Gecko feet and started to build silicon chips out of the tiny hairs.

This article could more aptly be titled, "New technology happens to reflect Gecko trait."

Nothing new

[tomalpha]

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.