Friday, July 23, 2004

'Terabyte territory'


Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoinger, freelancer and one of my correspondents in a previous life, quoted me in his latest column in the mobile Internet news site The Feature:

    To find out more, I spoke to nanotechnology expert Howard Lovy, the principal author of a new report on nanostorage that was issued this week by the market research firm, NanoMarkets.

    Lovy told me the one big advantage of MRAM is instant access. Compared to hard drives and flash memory, which are relatively slow, MRAM is speedy. It's not as fast as SRAM, but unlike SRAM, MRAM is nonvolatile, which means the data doesn't go "poof!" when the power is cut off. MRAM could give mobile phones a much-desired instant-on (and off!) capability.

    MRAM also uses a lot less power than solid-state memory since it doesn't have to be continuously refreshed. It only uses power when it is being accessed, and even then, it only needs a small amount. Another advantage is the ultra-high storage capacities that are achievable. "It brings us into the terabyte territory," says Lovy. Were talking not just your entire music library on a chip, but the entire Library of Congress on a sugar cube." More here.

NanoBot Backgrounder
Money for Memory
My 64-bits worth
Thanks for the nanomemories, Intel

Update: Engadget is running a new storage medium roundup. But, then, they blow it by being so hip and more cynical than thou that they fail to see the difference between real technology and chicken sh_t.

No comments: