Mechanical Chip Promises Huge Data Storage
A super-dense memory chip that stores data in the form of nanoscale holes in a plastic film has made its public debut at the CeBIT electronics exhibition in Hanover, Germany.
Source: New ScientistStoring data in the form of holes is not new - CDs use pits in a polycarbonate disc, for instance, and 19th-century looms stored patterns on punched cards. But the "Millipede" technology from IBM's Zurich lab promises very high capacity thanks to its use of holes just 10 nanometres wide. This means that a square chip measuring 2.4 centimetres on a side should be able to store 125 gigabytes, says the company, equivalent to 25 DVDs.
The Millipede chip achieves this by having an array of tens of thousands of silicon cantilevers, explains IBM researcher Evangelos Eleftheriou. Each has a pointed tip that writes data by poking holes - representing a digital 0 or 1 - in the soft polymer below. The cantilever also reads the data when needed, by measuring the stress induced in the cantilever when it drops into a hole.
Electromagnetic actuators within the chip package move the polymer film beneath the cantilevers so that each tip can read and write within a 100-micrometre-square area. Data is erased using a heater in each cantilever which melts the polymer locally, smoothing the pits over for re-use.
0