Trevor, thanks for posting that exciting article.
I remember reading that quantum dots would make
a good semiconductor for data storage, and now
have been seeing some articles that they could
be used on a data processing chip because they
are ultrafast switches and can hold a charge.
Of course, being quantum dots, less are needed
to do a job because they are more efficient, and
less heat is generated, which is always a prime
factor limiting the amount of work a chip does.
In the article, when Jabbour compared the QD
to Pentium processors, it flashed to me that
potentially Intel and IBM could be a client. Amazing!
Regarding that KAUST article recently posted which
interviewed an industrial partner. These companies
would share in intellectual property developed at
KAUST, but I think a company like QMC coming in with
a patented product like a QD rather gives them an
intimate view of the potential and an opportunity
to approach QMC for projects. IBM and Dow and other
major companies become allies rather than adversaries
in this situation. IMO, we hope!
Trevor's Post:
Part of a article exploring future computing and storage.
Organic films
The University of Arizona's Optical Data Storage Center has provided US$2 million in funding for the molecular memory work. Dror Sarid, director of the center, and optical scientist Ghassan E. Jabbour are pioneering theory and experiments that are leading the way to very fast, low-cost and compact memory devices.
Sarid and Jabbour believe that nanotech organic films will be the data storage medium of the near future, using millions of microelectronic arms (also known as MEMS probes) to read and write data in clusters of molecules on the film.
The scientists are developing an idea that originated with IBM and Stanford University researchers. It combines silicon-based microelectronics with micromachining technology. Sarid and Jabbour have demonstrated their version of a MEMS probe that employs a cantilever to deliver pulses of electric current as the tip of the probe "taps" on a surface. The cantilever's injected current changes the electric resistance at the point where it contacts the surface and writes data.
"In principle, one should have no trouble in making a million cantilevers operate in parallel in the MEMS probe," Sarid says. "After all, Pentium processors in computers have millions of transistors, and this is much simpler than a transistor. And Jabbour has the expertise to fabricate nano-thick organic thin films for low-cost memory."
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