Nano-Scale Memory Fits A Terabit On A Square Inch

prostoalex writes "San Jose Business Journal talks about Nanochip, a company that's developing molecular-scale memory: "Nanochip has developed prototype arrays of atomic-force probes, tiny instruments used to read and write information at the molecular level. These arrays can record up to one trillion bits of data -- known as a terabit -- in a single square inch. That's the storage density that magnetic hard disk drive makers hope to achieve by 2010. It's roughly equivalent to putting the contents of 25 DVDs on a chip the size of a postage stamp." The story also mentions Millipede project from IBM, where scientists are trying to build nano-scale memory that relies on micromechanical components."

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be able to store my gigaquads in a compact space.

Ive seen this before

[Anonymous Coward]

They were talkig about this a while back on simulatedlucidity.com

Magnetic memory = Doom

[Geogriffith]

Is it just me, or is persistent memory (i.e. magnetic) a really bad idea?

Now instead of rebooting to wipe viruses, spyware, crashed programs from memory, now we're going to have to wave a magnet inside our computers.

A step backwards, if you ask me.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Postage Stamp Storage

[cybercobra]

Cool, the next time I need to send something over sneakernet to someone far away, I'll just send a postcard with 2 stamps on it. 1 postal and 1 storage stamp.

impressive

[Hellasboy]

i'm impressed... 25 dvds for 1 terabit. but i think were all holding out until we hit 150 zip disks on a square centimeter or 172 ls-120's on the size of a heineken bottle cap.

Checksums

[LaCosaNostradamus]

25 DVDs on a chip the size of a postage stamp

Well, not with the software overhead in various checksums that will be had in 2010:

• MPAA/RIAA field (the "copy checksum")
• Dept. of Homeland Security header (the "red checksum")
• UN Standards bit (the "blue checksum")
• .SUM (the "Microsoft checksum")

Those are apt to take up quite a bit of space. So maybe you'll get 15 DVDs (maybe 20 by paying Microsoft an expansion fee) on that postage stamp.

Fastest Transfer Rate

[ryanmfw]

So, if we attached a couple square inches of this stuff to a pigeon, or filled a 747 with some of these chips, and flew it around the world, how fast would the transfer rate be?

Re:25 DVDs?

[kyouteki]

Except, of course, nobody said anything about terabytes, or even terrabytes.

A square inch!

[NaruVonWilkins]

My god, it's two dimensional! Our memory limitations are over!

OK! ENOUGH BULLSHIT NUMBERS!!!

[__aailob1448]

We don't measure HDs in Terabits . 1 Tbit = 128 GBytes or 128 gigs3

Second, converting this from inches to Centimeters, we get slightly less than 20GB/cm^2

Yes ladies and gentlemen, 20 Gigs per Squared centimeters.

That's a nice increase but it sure as hell isn't overwhelming.

Assuming a radius of 5 cm for a 3.5" HD, we get a surface of 80 cm^2 per platter. That comes to 800 Gb per platter. around 8 times the current density.

These new-gen HDs will be at most 8 times bigger than those we have right now.

That's it. 8 times. Not even a single order of magnitude.

Now mod this up or be destroyed!

At the end of my nose...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...there is a single atom. Orbiting it is an electron. When it's in a spin up state I consider it to contain a 1. When spin down it's a zero. There: a prototype of a multi exaterapetabit/mm^3 storage device at the end of my nose. Oh wait - I might be able to hype this up more. Oh yes...it's an electron, so it's in a superposition state. It's a multi exapetaterabyte/mm^3 quantum computer at the end of my nose. Surely /. have got to publish this story now.

Yeah, but ...

[elronxenu]

They didn't explain how many volkswagons per metric second.

Overheard at IBM...

[isny]

Boss: What are you two working on? You've been sitting and staring at the screen for hours.
Engineer 1: Uh....the millipede project.
Engineer 2: Yeah. Lots of data stored in two dimensional space.
Boss: Great! Keep up the good work. (Leaves)
Engineer 1: Whew that was close.
Engineer 2: In more ways than one. Look out! Here comes the spider again...
Engineer 1: I love MAME.

bytes, bits, nibbles blah!!!

[falser]

Why can't people just standardize on a common unit of measurement such the number of Encyclopedia Brittanica's or the number of Library of Congress's?

Re:Checksums

[mrgsd]

With each checksum containing an "Evil Bit" (or are they all evil?)

Re:impressive

[Punboy]

Free Terabit of Heinie with your Heineken! ...Thats Free Porn.

Re:Fastest Transfer Rate

[Dark Lord Seth]

African or European pigeon?