Cranking up the heat
Heat is a problem for most semiconductor manufacturers, but it is the key to Nanochip's technology. A microscopic probe hovering above a piece of silicon quickly heats a point on the silicon to over 600 degrees Celsius. Almost instantly, the silicon crystal beneath the probe becomes amorphous, and thus gets read as a 0. When it cools, it crystallises, and the area registers as a 1.
Using material this way to store data is part of the field of electronics called "Ovonics." The concept is similar to IBM's Millipede technology, but it relies on different processes to change the underlying media and uses fewer probes, Knight said.
While similar to CDs and DVDs, Ovonic media can store more data, according to advocates, because the tools for writing and reading the data -- in this case, microscopic probes -- are incredibly small, thereby reducing the memory storage location. A red laser, used to read data on a CD, has a beam that's 500 nanometres long. The probes, potentially, could get down to 20 nanometres. (A nanometre is a billionth of a metre.)
While full prototypes do not yet exist, Nanochip has demonstrated to investors that a 1-square-inch chip of its material could contain a terabit of data.
Commercially released chips could contain 50GB of storage space, but, as a Chiclet-size chip, they would be far smaller than the 3.5-inch hard drives inside desktops today. Early versions are likely to compete directly with today's minidrives, which contain 1GB to 4GB. Samples should go to customers next year, while volume production could conceivably begin in 2006.
"Speed is a problem because it involves mechanical tips. We're limited by the actuator speed," he said. (The "actuator" is the crane arm that moves the probes into place.) The technology thus will likely compete against NAND flash, the kind found in digital camera cards, or minidrives.
While density would appeal to consumers, the comparatively low cost will appeal to manufacturers. The device's actuators together measure around 10 microns to 20 microns in length, relatively large compared with the 90-nanometre-size features found on today's chips. Ideally, chipmakers could manufacture these chips with tools last used in the early 90s.
"They are tiny from a mechanical standpoint, but they are big from a lithography standpoint," Knight said.
History shows that this could be an uphill climb. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore once predicted a bright future for Ovonics. That prediction was made in the early '70s and has yet to be fulfilled.
