IBM Demos Single-Atom DRAM

An anonymous reader writes "A single-atom DRAM was demonstrated by IBM recently with a slow-mo movie of the atomic process of setting and erasing a bit on a single atom. Videos of atomic processes inside chips were not possible until now, leading to IBM's claim that its pulsed-STM (used to make the movie) will lead to a new atomic-scale semiconductor industry, and not just for memory chips, according to this EETimes story: 'The ultimate memory chips of the future will encode bits on individual atoms, a capability recently demonstrated for iron atoms by IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., which unveiled a new pulsed technique for scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs). Pulsed-STMs yield nanosecond time-resolution, a requirement for designing the atomic-scale memory chips, solar panels and quantum computers of the future, but also for making super efficient organic solar cells by controlling photovoltaic reactions on the atomic level.'"

Comments

A video explaining how it works

[rminsk]

Video explaining the process.

Just one atom?

[iceaxe]

One atom ought to be enough for anybody.

(Sorry)

Big deal...

[skynexus]

the processor on my computer runs on a single Atom already. I'm not impressed.

Re:And by Moore's Law...

[jameskojiro]

1 year after that we will be encoding data on quarks themselves.....

6 months later we will make neutrinos our bitches for storing and processing data....

3 months after that we will be creating even smaller particles from cosmic strings to process and store data int he fabric of spacetime.

1 day later we will make God cry.