New Silicon-Based Memory 5X Denser Than NAND Flash

Lucas123 writes "Researchers at Rice University said today they have been able to create a new non-volatile memory using nanocrystal wires as small as 5 nanometers wide that can make chips five times more dense than the 27 nanometer NAND flash memory being manufactured today. And, the memory is cheap because it uses silicon and not more expensive graphite as been used in previous iterations of the nanowire technology. The nanowires also allow stacking of layers to create 3-D memory, even more dense. 'The fact that they can do this in 3D makes makes it highly scalable. We've got memory that's made out of dirt-cheap material and it works,' a university spokesman said."

Comments

Re:25x more dense, not 5x more dense...

[noidentity]

If a single dimension changes, assuming the NAND cell structure is similar, there would be a 5x reduction in size in each of the X and Y dimensions. Therefore, you would get up to 25x more density than a current NAND. This is why process technologies roughly target the smallest drawn dimension to progressively double gate density every generation (i.e. 45nm has 2x more cells than 32nm).

I was going to let this slide, but you blew it at the end. Let's assume you meant to say that 32nm has 2x more cells than 45nm. That's still wrong.

The 32nm one can fit the same cell in half the area. I think we agree so far. This means that in the same area, the 32nm one has twice the number of cells than the 45nm one. It does NOT have two times more; it only has one time more. It'd be like saying that a human has two eyes more than a cyclops. A human has twice the number of eyes, but only one eye more.

This is an amazingly common error I see often here on Slashdot, given that many of us are programmers. "X is two times more than Y" translates as X = 2*Y + Y. The English version of X = 2*Y is "X is two times Y".