Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO: Researchers at International Business Machines Corp. have
punched holes about 6,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair in a
piece of plastic, creating a novel form of data storage.
After six years of work the Zurich-based researchers say they can fit 1
terabit of data -- effectively the contents of a 100-gigabyte computer hard
drive -- on a postage stamp-size piece of plastic.
The data takes the form of up to a trillion holes drilled by a precise and
extremely hot nano-needle, the researchers said. In the world of data storage,
dominated by disk drives which hold bits and bytes electromagnetically and flash
memory cards for Palm Pilots and digital cameras that use electrical charges,
holding information in hole-punches seems old hat.
However, the company that preceded IBM set the world on fire 110 years ago by
making computer punch cards.
"One of our slogans is back to the future of mechanics," said Peter
Vettiger, leader of the project, called Millipede, in a telephone interview from
Zurich. His holes are 10 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, and about 3
billion of them fit in a punch card hole.
He said that in the best of circumstances, including IBM deciding to continue
the project's funding, consumers might be able to buy by late 2005 a mechanical
memory chip based on the research that would hold 5-10 gigabytes of data.
Information, which would be translated into a binary arrangement such as
zeros and ones in other computer memory systems, is broken is broken into dots
and dashes that become holes and flat surfaces on the plastic surface of the new
chip.
The plastic sits on a piece of silicon. Hovering above it are roughly 1,000
tiny phonograph arms, each with a needle on the end. The phonograph arm is
actually made of two different materials that conduct heat differently. At 400
degrees centigrade, one side expands more than the other, bending the arm and
plunging the hot needle into the plastic, creating a hole with a lip on the
side.
Subsequently, a second plunge just to the side of the first would heat the
material and cause the initial hole to fill in, making it possible to rewrite on
a chip. To read data, the needle is heated about 100 degrees less, so that the
arm bends but the tip cannot melt the plastic. The tip then measures the
resistance between the surface and what's beneath it. A hole reads differently
than a flat area.
Vettiger said that the technology was best for low-power, mobile situations,
since the chip works fine at speeds that are much slower than competing
technologies.
Even so, the nanotech punch-card was fast enough to supply information to a
broadband network, for instance, IBM said. With more energy, the chips can
transfer information faster, he added.
(C) Reuters Limited.