Nano Technology in memory storage

Hard drives used as memory in computers  consume more power and have more chance of failure than solid state memory that doesn't have any moving parts.Solid-state computer memory has become popular on smaller computers, such as tablets.

Comparison of HDD vs SDD

This solid-state computer memory take up less space, uses less battery power,  and is less likely to be damaged if the device is dropped. Nanotechnology is being used to improve the density of solid-state computer memory.

Solid-state drives store information on a type of transistor called flash. Currently, flash memory manufacturers use nanolithography techniques to build memory chips with minimum feature sizes as small as 20 nm.

Researchers have demonstrated vertical flash transistors. The idea is that by making the transistors vertically memory cells could be stacked on top of each other, with the potential for increasing the memory density. Researchers suggest that the memory cell density could be 8 to 16 times higher than for planar transistors.

Hewett Packard is developing a memory device that uses nanowires coated with titanium dioxide. One group of these nanowires is deposited parallel to another group. When a perpendicular nanowire is laid over a group of parallel wires, at each intersection a device called a memristor is formed.

A memristor can be used as a single-component memory cell in an integrated circuit. By reducing the diameter of the nanowires, researchers believe memristor memory chips can achieve higher memory density than flash memory chips.

 HP is working with Hynix Semiconductor to develop memory components based upon memristors, called Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM)