A fundamental barrier to the continued fast miniaturization of computer memory, which has been the basis for the consumer electronics revolution, can be overcome by scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard.

The recent announcements provide hope that the limits of physics and finance faced by chip-makers that had loomed so huge that experts feared a slowdown in the pace of miniaturization will not be applied any time soon.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

In one of the two new developments, Rice researchers are reporting in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society, that they have succeeded in building reliable small digital switches — an essential part of computer memory — that could shrink to a significantly smaller scale than is possible using conventional methods.

More important, the advance is based on silicon oxide, one of the basic building blocks of today’s chip industry, thus easing a move toward commercialisation. The scientists said that PrivaTran, a Texas startup company, has made experimental chips using the technique that can store and retrieve information.

These chips store only 1,000 bits of data, but if the new technology fulfils the promise its inventors see, single chips that store as much as today’s highest capacity disk drives could be possible in five years. The new method involves filaments as thin as five nanometers in width — thinner than what the industry hopes to achieve by the end of the decade using standard techniques. The initial discovery was made by Jun Yao, a graduate researcher at Rice. Yao said he stumbled on the switch by accident.

Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a consumer electronics market research company in Seaford, New York, said there are many new technologies pawing for attention.