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Nanotube RAM

I

iMook

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
168
0
This article is sorta old (1.5 weeks) but quite interesting

Slashdot - Nanotube RAM

1 TB per square centimeter. Wow.
Imagine, an entirely solid-state computer with reams of memory, near-zero boot time, and capable of running oodles of progs at once. Couple a piece of this memory the size of a poker card with a parallel CPU array, and you'd get...

The GX Tower (or pizzabox). *Twilight Zone music*


BUT...
I don't know too many details about information entropy, but wouldn't rewriting/permanently erasing such a RAM disc create a WHOLE LOT of heat? Can someone who knows a bit about this share with the rest of us?
 
I've seen this story on Slashdot...and yeah, this is pretty amazing. Though, I haven't seen alot of stuff that has come out of the nanotube/buckyball discoveries.

Also, from what I have heard, Intel is going to develop this technology as well. (This is what I heard from my parents stock broker...I can't confirm this is absolutely true)

If this worked as great as they say, this would replace hard drives forever, as the nano-ram holds more (and will probably be able to hold even more with more research and development) , and has the ability to store it even when no current is passing through it.
 
If it works out...cool....but it will be a very long time before it trickles into consumer computers...
 
This is wild stuff. I just sent them an email asking them how long it would be before we the consumer would get our hands on this technology. I'll post a reply when they get back to me.
 
"Unlike silicon, which is pushing against its physical limitations, carbon-nanotube technology is in its infancy. Greg Schmergel, Nantero's boss, says that within the next few years the firm's engineers may be able to achieve data densities of a trillion bits per square centimetre (more than 1,000 times that available on existing RAM) and it will be possible to read those memories 100 times faster than can be done at the moment. The days of silicon-based memory may be numbered. "

Most excellent - if they can get to production volumes in a few years this would revolutionize the industry. Imagine an iPod with 500 gigs of storage half the size it is today? Not to mention what it would mean to desktop computing in general.

D
 
Error in my initial post, it's Tb = terabits, not TB = terabytes.

Also, such an ipod would just be an OLED screen, a battery, and a SD-card-sized memory chip with 200 GB.

Actually, going really radical and geeky-looking, build the music unit into a watch, have wireless headphones, and have a rollout display.
Or even more geeky, build the whole thing into a pair of sunglasses. Have a microdisplay in the left lens. Of course, you'd look like Cylops in action every time you want change the volume/playlist/song/etc.

But, does anyone know any details about information entropy?
 
oh yeah that stuff, i had that on my powermac ages ago. its real fun to highlight everything in my computer and hold apple o.

iJon
 
i read this on slashdot almost 2 weeks ago now, but i just wanted to comment here since i never bother saying anything on slashdot... just a waste of time. heh

my comment?

it's technology like this that will make our dreams of the future possible. it's also the technology that makes me feel all giddy and want to jump around like a crazy person. very cool stuff. been watching the nano news as the most exciting tech stuff around since IBM first rearranged molecules to read 'IBM'

bring it on!
 
i just posted a quick 'that's cool' after i saw the article, then i went backand actually read it. damn. that stuff is cool!! :D if there are any other people out there that just skim and don't read, i really suggest that you go back and read it.

and melchior, could you post some links to any 'nano news' sites you know of. i hardly see anything about nano-technology, so some links to point me in the right direction would be really appreciated. :)
 
I was thinking about some other apps for this stuff. Imagine getting a digital video camera with a couple terrabytes of Nanotube ram? If it could be like flash cards it would give us some great solid state data storage, easily transferable. Cool stuff :D

D
 
well, if you are anything like me, then you are probably a bit of a layman when it comes to this stuff. actually... it seems to me, that the self-proclaimed experts, the nano-technologists, are all laymen too.

what i mean is that everyone is running around saying it's the next Big Thing (tm) it's going to save humanity and blah blah blah. most of the books i have seen are like this too. and there are a lot of books for a field that barely exists. i mean we are talking about serious depths of R&D still. this particular slashdot.org article was amusing and made me proud too since i'm a melbournian. but i am a monash student (sort of, i've been in japan for 2 years now) and besides, i'm supposed to hate melbourne uni and it's ****s.... but alas, i am instead jealous of being a group called Interfacial Contiuum Mechanics but i am not jealous of their style :rolleyes:

This is a good book that is worth checking out.

Scientific American has some good, easy to understand articles. i'd reconmend them too.

The site that is on my daily web checking list is nanodot.org as you might guess from the name, it's a slashcode site like slashdot.org or macslash.com

i hope you find the links useful. i like hypertext. :p
 
Originally posted by pseudobrit
Hmm... uncompressed sound files instead of mp3s or AAC will become the norm, so I think I'll still manage to run myself out of HD space.
Click to expand...

yes, in the future .cda will be considered poor quality. oh, how i cannot wait! but we will have been DRM'd up the ass so many times we won't remember what it's like to freely lend a cd to a friend... :confused:
 
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