Blood-Cell-Sized Memory Device Beats Industry Estimates for Computing Capacity



An area no bigger than a white blood cell contains the 160,000 bit memory array.
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Researchers have created an ultra-dense memory device the size of a white blood cell that has enough capacity to store the Declaration of Independence and still have space left over. The accomplishment represents an important step toward the creation of molecular computers that are much smaller and could be more powerful than today's silicon-based computers.

"Using molecular components for memory or computation or to replace other electronic components holds tremendous promise," said J. Fraser Stoddart, who is the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanosystems Science at UCLA and director of the California NanoSystems Institute.

The 160,000 memory bits are arranged like a large tic-tac-toe board: 400 silicon wires crossed by 400 titanium wires, each 16 nanometers wide, with a layer of dumbbell-shaped molecular switches sandwiched between the crossing wires.

"This research is one of the only examples of building large molecular memory in a chip at an extremely high density, testing it, and working in an architecture that is practical, where it is obvious how information can be written and read," Stoddart said.

Stoddart, his collaborator James R. Heath, the Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, and their research teams report the work in the January 25 issue of the journal Nature.

According to a fundamental computing tenet known as Moore's law, the complexity of an integrated circuit, or computer chip, will double every year. That means the electronics industry won't achieve a device density comparable to what the research team produced until about 2020--provided companies can figure out how to do it. But, the report says, manufacturers currently see no way to extend the miniaturization beyond the year 2013.

"Our goal was not to demonstrate a robust technology; the memory circuit we have reported on is hardly that," said Heath. "Instead, our goal was to demonstrate that large-scale, working electronic circuits could be constructed at a density that is well-beyond (10-15 years) where many of the most optimistic projections say is possible."

"Molecular switches will lead to other new technologies beyond molecular electronic computers," Stoddart said; "it is too soon to say precisely which ones will be the first to benefit, but they could include areas such as health care, alternative energy, and homeland security."

The research was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Great! Get ready to have your personal info inplanted into your body without you even knowing it.. lol


SCARY!! But still cool to see they can make stuff that small... Can I have 300 for my home computer now please?

homeland security..that word is getting the crips out of me..
anyway, I heavily doubt one can write and read data out of such minimized cells in any measurable speed for the moment so that's a tech that needs a lot time to develop IMO. Don't think that moore's law will hold at least when it comes to data throughput..

Reminds me of the implanted computers in Jeffrey Carvers 'Eternity's End' and Rick Shelley's military sci-fi books implanted medical nano-bot things.

I, for one, welcome our microscopic memory overlords!

just do not want any inplanted in my person!

well see kenneth. hasn't hurt him in any way ..

hahahahaha But must be hard to get a decent date for Friday nights!

and what No hair club for men?? lol

Big brother is watching us... Soon he will even know our cholesterol leves, urine pH level, poop composition, cavity formation and growth, rate of hair growth (or lack there of), and lets not forget the ever important snore decible level.

Not Me! noooo Way.... lol

I wont let him! lol......

What happened to your screen name?

My Screen name??? Ohhhhhhhhhh Yea.. Shhhhhhhh!!!

I earned an upgrade.. lol wonder if Matress will like it??

An upgrade?

Look at it this way... You will always be able to figure out when you are sick with some disease by logging onto a government website.

Of course, then how would you know where that disease came from. It just might have been given to you by...

Whats that noise...

Oh shoot... It's THEM...

I've said too much...


Gotta jet!

Yea.. hmmm hard to explain... lol

It's way off topic. but what the heck..

[moved to the where did your sign in name come from..]

Does it involve torturing people to death with exagerated pronounciations? If it does I think... its... working....

Ahh... just joking.... I have plans as well... They are not evil though...

Just insane like me!!

Mwahahah! MWAHAHAH!


MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!



Hmm... What to destroy first... Perhaps Romulus...

Hehehe... Fun!

good luck with that false plan..

Mu hahahahaha....

False? Whats false? I don't recal saying that I was joking... Only that I was insane.