Nanochip technology offers alternative to flash

Nanochip, a Fremont, US-based company, has raised $14m to develop a new array-based memory technology which could provide an alternative to flash and hard drives.

The technology is expected to provide greater storage capacity than flash memory and cost savings will be achieved on the manufacturing process compared with the hard drive manufacturing process.

The first Nanochip memory prototypes will have a 100GB storage capacity, compared with the tens of gigabytes stored on flash memory cards.

Whereas flash memory stores information with specialised transistors, Nanochip technology stores data on a thin-film material, and accesses it using microscopic cantilevers, each with an extremely sharp tip.

Each bit will be 15 nanometers wide at first, with theoretical sizes as small as a couple of nanometers.

Nanochip memory devices will be more rugged than hard drives, and also have the advantage of being virtually silent.

Nanochip hopes to start distributing the prototypes to device manufacturers in 2009 for evaluation.

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