Carbon Nanotube Memory

Nantero, a tiny entrepreneurial company, has the modest ambition of replacing all existing computer memory chips, not to mention those in cell-phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players, with its carbon nanotube based NRAM (nanotube-based nonvolatile random access memory) chips. Nantero was started by NRAM inventor Thomas Ruekes, Harvard chemist Brent Segal and CEO Greg Schmergel.

According to Schmergel, the advantages of NRAM are speed, density, non-volatility, lower power consumption, and reduction of errors due to alpha radiation. “NRAM is as dense as DRAM, as fast as SRAM, and as non-volatile as flash memory,” he says. That just about covers the gamut of memory chips as can be seen in the table below.





Source: The Nanotech Pioneers: Where are they taking us?






Except of course, for MRAM, which was covered in the last post. What does MRAM proponent, Daniel Baker think of NRAM? “From what I know… [NRAM] is interesting technology, but we that believe MRAM is closer to commercialization, more producible, and more scalable than carbon nanotube memory,” says Baker, CEO of NVE Corp.

Nantero does have some adherents, however. LSI Logic is seeking to integrate the NRAM concept into its CMOS technology. LSI will have the option of using NRAM to replace S-RAM in its ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) chips. NRAM chips started rolling off of LSI’s production lines in May 2004, converting its engineers into nanotech believers. BAE Systems is working with Nantero to develop NRAM chips for defense and aerospace application. Nantero is also participating with Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc. and CASE-Southwestern Missouri State in a $4.5 million program to develop radiation hardened NRAM chips to replace the SRAM chips currently used for applications in space. Schmergel suspects that NRAM memory might be stable in the face of an electromagnetic pulse engendered by an atomic blast, but the company has yet to do the experiment.


NRAM chips exploits the flexibility, thermal an electrical conductivity and durability of nanotubes. In the “off” state, the nanotube is suspended over an electrode. In the “on” state, the suspended nanotube bends to touch the electrode. Both states are stable. Switching is done by electrical fields. The off and on states can represent the 1’s and 0’s of computer memory. Eventually, Nantero hopes that NRAM will replace even computer hard drives, which means they will be instant-on devices.

Nantero also believes that nanotubes have a place in logic devices. Partnership talks are underway in this effort.

A number of prominent venture capitalists are supporting Nantero, including Globescan Capital Partners, Charles River Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Stata Venture Partners, and Harris & Harris Group. The company also has some impressive industry leaders on its board. Among these are Alex D’Arbeloff, cofounder of Teradyne, and now chairman of MIT, and former IBM executive O. B. Bilous, who is now chairman of the board for International SEMATECH, a global consortium of semiconductor manufactures.

Like NVE Corp., Nantero has no intentions of building a fab and making its own chips. Instead, the company will rely on royalties from its intellectual property, a business model for the semiconductor industry already pioneered successfully by Rambus and Qualcomm. Schmergel expect the first commercial quantity NRAM chips to be marketed in two to three years.