Page III: The only question is which approach will work best -- using molten silicon, designer molecules, or maybe protein globules?
ZettaCore has crafted a complex molecule that can retain or release up to eight electrons. Depending on the number of retained electrons, a given molecule will exhibit a distinct voltage level, which can be read as data. A single molecule can represent 4 bits of data; by contrast, much larger flash memory chips on the market today can retain 2 bits of data at once.
"Molecules act similar, but the fundamental difference is the amount of charge in a given area is greater," said company CEO Randy Levine, who used to teach astrophysics at Harvard University. "Everything is contributing."
As with Nanochip's technology, the payoff comes in two ways: More data can be stored in a smaller space and the chip-manufacturing process, potentially, is cheaper. As with current chips, memory cells have to be drawn through lithography. In ZettaCore's technology, the molecules repel and attract one another until orientated on a substrate. Chemical forces, rather than physical manipulation, orchestrate a chip's design.
Each of the molecules contains several hundred atoms. "They aren't small by (the) chemist's standpoint, but they are extremely small from a manufacturing standpoint," Levine said. The molecule can hold the charge after a host computer is turned off and therefore can be used to replace flash or standard computer memory, called DRAM.
"We have built workable chips at commercially interesting densities," Levine said. "All of the challenges at this point deal with manufacturability."
Of all the companies in this field, ZettaCore arguably has the most star power. Founded by professors from North Carolina State University and the University of California, Riverside, the company has raised US$23 million from, among others, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Intel Capital. Industry luminaries such as Vinod Khosla and Les Vadasz sit on the board.
"It is a conservative industry," Levine said. "But people are talking about it (the transformation). I don't know a major memory vendor that isn't."
Should cows get stock options?
Cambridge, England-based NanoMagnetics is one of a number of new start-ups trying to improve electronics through biology.
"We've got little rust particles that are carried by a protein ball. We can take out the rust and put in platinum alloys or other metallic materials," which can then be used to represent data, explained Mayes, founder and CEO. "Each particle is uniform in size."
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