Tech Weave

Molecular Memories

A company called "Nanochip Inc. from Monterey, California claim to have made a major breakthrough in the development of very small solid state memories. They say they can store as much as 900M bytes of data on a single IC package. Their memory circuits will first be used to replace hard disk drives in computer systems. They indicate that their circuits are ten times faster than typical disk drives and consume much less power. When volume production levels are reached, they also claim that the system will cost much less than hard disk drives. Their goal is a cram enough memory circuits inside a standard 3 ½ inch disk drive form factor to store as much as 1,400GBs of data. Such a memory capacity is at least one hundred times more than possible with standard hard disk drives. Smaller versions will also find their way into digital cameras, video recorders and audio playback systems. If their goals are reached, it will spell the end to clunky mechanical magnetic and optical disk drives.

posted by Vandana Bhatia @ 6:45 AM