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Researchers at Purdue University (USA) are developing a new type of computer memory that could be faster than the existing memory devices and consume far less power than flash memory. The devices combines silicon nanowires with a ferroelectric polymer, which is a material that switches polarity when an electric field is applied, to make storage cells whose polarity can be read as digital ones and zeros.
The new technology, which according to the researchers is still in a very nascent stage, is called FeTRAM for “ferroelectric transistor random access memory”. FeTRAM devices are nonvolatile, which means that data is retained in the absence of power. They could potentially use only 1% of the power of current flash memory devices, although the current version consume more power because it is not properly scaled. [via]
Radically new memory technology - [Link]
Engineering researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to improve the performance of ferroelectric materials, which have the potential to make memory devices with more storage capacity than magnetic hard drives and faster write speed and longer lifetimes than flash memory. [via]
Fundamental discovery could lead to better memory chips – [Link]
