Nanotero’s carbon nanotube nram chips, finally

Nantero partnered with SVTC Technologies to offer the first eight-inch nanotube thin-film development foundry. SVTC uses Nantero’s process to prototype commercial CMOS carbon nanotube designs for fabless chip houses.

Nantero has developed a “CMOS-friendly” proprietary CNT process that it will install at SVTC’s two state-of-the-art development fabs, in San Jose, Calif., and Austin, Texas. Together, Nantero and SVTC can offer CNT device development capabilities for customers targeting a wide range of applications including photovoltaics (solar cells), LEDs, sensors, MEMS and other semiconductor-based devices.

Nram is described at wikipedia

NRAM may be able to become much denser than DRAM. NRAM does not require power to “refresh” it, and will retain its memory even after the power is removed. Additionally the power needed to write to the device is much lower than a DRAM. NRAM can theoretically reach speeds similar to SRAM, which is faster than DRAM but much less dense, and thus much more expensive. NRAM is one of a variety of new memory systems, many of which claim to be “universal” in the same fashion as NRAM – replacing everything from Flash to DRAM to SRAM. Nantero has been claimed NRAM release dates since 2005

SVTC said its first customer is prototyping a carbon nanotube-based random-access memory (NRAM). Nantero claims NRAMs could be up to 20 times denser than current flash memories using 22-nm square bit cells compared to 100-nm cells for current 16-Gbit flash memories. 320-Gbit/chip densities for NRAM using current lithography.

Using next generation lithography, Nantero claims nanotube thin films could ultimately be capable of terabit-per-chip capacities by squeezing bit cells down to as small as 5-nm square. “Beyond NRAM, there are also applications in displays, touch screens, solar cells, sensors and MEMS devices,” said Greg Schmergel, Nantero co-founder, president and CEO. “Our process puts carbon nanotube thin films on a variety of substrates in a manner that can be mass-produced in any CMOS foundry. You can make the films thinner and thicker, change their density, even make them trasparent for displays and touch screens,” he claimed.

2 thoughts on “Nanotero’s carbon nanotube nram chips, finally”

  1. Thanks. I find it both funny and hopefully a way to get AI and Singularity memes out to a wider audience. I corrected his name in my posting where it refers to the real Eliezer and not the slightly altered subject of the play where they did use the ending i.

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