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back to article KIT drives off with memory win: 1-bit-per-MOLECULE storage

While its students may not have managed a win in the cluster compo smackdown last month, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) scored a resounding victory for storage technology when its researchers managed to read and write a bit of information from a single molecule. Toshio Miyamachi, first author of the study and a …

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  1. Chris Tierney
    Happy

    200Pb Drive

    Imagine the rebuild time on that drive.

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    1. StooMonster
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Re: 200Pb Drive

      That's easy, it would take an eighth of the time the 200PB drive referred to in the article would take.

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  2. Martin Huizing

    I just had an idea...

    How about we use existing technology to address smaller memory locations. In nand memory this wouldn't be a problem. Just a layer of addresses underneath the memory which acts like a controller (ie binary info send to one address block which will disperse the bits into the right memory lane below)

    Just my two cents...

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  3. James Pickett

    "spintronics"

    Sounds like one of Uncle Clive Sinclair's dodgier startups in the 70's...

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    1. Crisp
      Reply Icon

      Sounds more like some new fad exercise

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  4. Full Mental Jacket

    CRC checking

    Would such a device need CRC aplenty, to counter say cosmic rays, static, other environmental effects?

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  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Memristive spintronic memory?

    Brilliant! The BOFH gets more ammo to apply Management Stack Theory

    And of course spell checkers go bananas!

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  6. LordHighFixer
    Boffin

    memory cube?

    layer the stuff in a cube and use lasers to impart and detect a charge. Glad I could sort that for you.

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  7. Graham Marsden
    WTF?

    "The idea is straight-out stupid."

    Oh, well no point in trying to develop it further, then...

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The idea is straight-out stupid."

      The idea of applying this invention to rotating disks *is* quite stupid, mind you. It's not proposed by it's inventors, though, I think. The article's author just spun the comparison with magnetic platter densities a little further.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have seen the top of the mountain.

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    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Schultz

    Read the article!

    It's open access, and there is no need for vague speculation in the article.

    According to figure 3b and 4d, the size of the molecular assembly is some 3 nm wide. That's neither 1 pm, nor 30,000 to 50,000 pm. Of course neither pm nor nm are an official Reg. units.

    The described spintronics work at 4.6 K on a very clean copper (100) / CuN surface. For a honest comparison to other kinds of memory, you'll have to count the substrate atoms as well, because they are crucial to the device, but I guess it would make the claim less spectacular. As would counting the infrastructure for cooling and moving the STM tip.

    I still think the IBM millipede concept is more interesting, but it looks like they missed their 2007 deadline for bringing a device to the market.

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  10. FatGerman
    FAIL

    Yes it's stupid now...

    ... but do you remember those 1MB Winchester disks that used to take up an entire tabletop and couldn't withstand a small nudge without crashing? Yes, that was only 30-odd years ago. It's called research and development. The emphasis here is now on the *development*.

    Bloody journalists.

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  11. 2cent

    Might I suggest...

    "Jarillo-Herrero and his team determined that illuminating graphene using a laser, results in variable heating of the material. The light heats graphene’s electrons that transmit current, but it does not heat the carbon nuclei lattice, which makes the backbone of the material. This temperature difference called as ‘hot-carrier’ response is responsible for production of the electricity flow."

    http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=23557

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