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Silver-Based Memory Devices May Replace Flash Drives

The Silver Institute
Sept. 13, 2013

You may not have heard the acronym ReRAM, but you will soon. Resistive Random Access Memory or ReRAMs (sometimes written as RRAMs) operate like tiny battery cells and store data through changes in the electrical resistance of the cell. The presence or absence of an electrical charge can be used to store bits of information. Although there are different types of ReRAMs, those using silver ions show excellent promise, according to industry officials.

This burgeoning technology for storing information will eventually replace flash memory – used in thumb drives and many notebooks. Currently, all tablets and smartphones use flash memory, but that too will change in coming years as ReRAMs take their place.

ReRAMs hold advantages over conventional flash drives. Because ReRAMs use so little power – in the nanowatt range compared to hundreds of milliwatts for flash drives – they could allow your smartphone to operate up to a week without recharging. A ReRAM chip the size of a postage stamp can hold a terabyte of data, enough to store 250 high-definition movies. Information is written to ReRAMs faster, nanoseconds compared to milliseconds for flash drives. ReRAMS also last longer; they are able to handle millions of rewrites compared to flash drives that fail after about 10,000 rewrites.

One company, Crossbar Inc., based in Santa Clara, California, touts its silver-ion based technology for its memory devices, which CEO George Minassian expects to be commercially available next year. Their ReRAM version relies on the formation of a filament produced by the movement of silver ions within a silicon base.

"Non-volatile memory is ubiquitous today as the storage technology at the heart of the over a trillion dollar electronics market – from tablets and USBsticks to enterprise storage systems," said Minassian in a prepared statement. "And yet, today's nonvolatile memory technologies are running out of steam, hitting significant barriers as they scale to smaller manufacturing processes. With our working Crossbar array, we have achieved all the major technical milestones that prove ourReRAM technology is easy to manufacture and ready for commercialization. It's a watershed moment for the non-volatile memory industry."

Other companies including Toshiba, Panasonic, HP, Micron and Samsung are also working on their own versions of ReRAMs, with many of their designs based on silver ions, too

Silver Ions Deposited on Glass by High-Speed Spinning

South Korean scientists have discovered a new way to coat glass with a layer of silver ions to prevent the growth of bacteria. This glass can be especially useful for medical apparatus, food service and other applications in which glass equipment must be kept sanitary despite germ-filled environments.

The team at Yonsei University in Seoul spin-coats the glass with 'sol-gel,' a gelatinous solution holding silver ions in the form of silver nitrate. The gel is spun at 2,000 revolutions per minute in a temperature of 392 degrees F. and deposited on the glass with great force. The result is glass with a silver ion coating that is more than 90 percent transparent compared to uncoated glass. In addition, tests showed that the coated glass is slightly more resistant to bending pressure than regular glass. Further testing showed that the glass exhibited all of the antibacterial properties expected of silver ions.

The researchers plan to try their spin-coating technique on other substances such as metals and plastics which would benefit from an antibacterial layer of silver ions

Silver's Antibacterial Power – College Doors Coated With Silver

Doors in four buildings at Penn State Erie have been coated with silver ions to help keep students healthy, according to school officials, and the project may lead to an industry-wide logo touting the antibacterial benefits of silver coatings. "It does seem to be effective," said Beth Potter, assistant professor of microbiology. Potter's students swabbed 50 door handles on campus and measured bacteria on surfaces with and without the silver treatment. The door handles treated with Agion silver were consistently cleaner, she reports.

School officials and representatives from Advanced Finishing USA, the company that sprayed the silver ion solution onto the handles, are considering other targets such as water bottles, bus strap handles, gas pumps and emergency exit door bars. The school's marketing department got involved in the project, too. Students of marketing professor Mary Beth Pinto used the coating to answer the question: How do you market an invisible product? Early tests on a stair railing at the college used a white coating, and the students found that people were reluctant to touch it, thinking it was wet paint. Tests in which they employed a clear coating to door handles at two local convenience stores showed that customers had no hesitation about touching it, but this presented a new issue: How do you let users know that they just received a benefit from the silver ion coating? This led students to develop signs and logos explaining the value of Agion products.

"Ideally, we'll get to some kind of identifiable symbol," said GregYahn, president of Advanced Finishing USA. "Something like the Nike swoosh, where you know from 10 feet away: 'That’s antimicrobial. It's OK to touch it.'"
goldsilverworlds.com

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