Nanomechanical memory demoed

November 22, 2004 | Source: Technology Research News

A team at Boston University has made a minuscule mechanical memory cell from silicon. The device is a bistable compressed beam clamped at both ends.

The memory cell beam is 8,000 nanometers long by 300 nanometers wide by 200 nanometers high. It can be switched at 23.5 MHz. The cell’s size allows more than 100 gigabytes to be stored per square inch and uses several orders of magnitude less power than today’s electronic memory.