Memory Of The FutureMemory Of The Future

Faster than existing memory, needing less power, and able to store up to 10 times more data in the same space: Look, two years into the future--it's the nonvolatile random access memory chip.

The chip is based on nanotechnology, the science of building computers and their components out of molecules. Nantero, a startup that collected $6 million in first-round funding last week from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and others, uses as its primary building block carbon nanotubes, whose walls are one-atom thick. "The usual comparison is 100,000 times smaller than a strand of your hair," says Greg Schmergel, Nantero's co-founder and CEO.

In addition to their speed and low power consumption, the chips have another advantage over dynamic RAM, the most common type of RAM in PCs and workstations: They're nonvolatile, meaning they won't lose their data when power is interrupted. One result would be "instant-on computers," Schmergel says. "You'd never have to wait for it to boot."

The chips could also substitute for flash memory in cell phones and MP3 players, Schmergel says, or perhaps in network servers. Schmergel's goal is to create a commercial prototype with 1 Gbyte of storage, but he believes that Nantero will be able to make a 1 terabyte-capacity chip within three to five years.