Over the weekend a publication came out about applying nanowires to flash like storage to produce memory that is cheaper to manufacture than typical flash memory storage materials we see today.
The fabrication is a combination of silicon nanowires and more traditional type of data storage.
Researchers say their hybrid structure may be more reliable than other nanowire-based memory devices built recently, and could as well be easily integrated into commercial applications.
According to the scientists, the device is a type of “non-volatile” memory, like flash memory, which is widely used in digital camera memory cards and USB memory sticks, meaning stored information is not lost when the device is without power.
In this new device, nanowires are integrated with a higher-end type of non-volatile memory that is similar to flash, a layered structure known as Semiconductor-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Semiconductor(SONOS) technology.
Here’s the key element of the design, when fully charged, each nanowire device stores a single bit of information, either a “0” or a “1” depending on the position of the electrons. When no voltage is present, the stored information can be read.
Since flash memory is a more expensive to produce than using the above design, the nanowire memory approach could further reduce the cost of memory thus creating a shift in manufacturing process, design and end user consumption. Not bad!
Source: Zee News
Mark McCrosky
Kicking around in technology since 2002. I like to write about technology products and ideas, but at the consumer level understanding. Some tech, but not too techie.
Posting on Quora.com as well.
