Nantero promised us that their nanotube based flash memory would be available in 2009 and disappointed us by failing to reach that goal but The Register has some great news, they currently have 4Mbit arrays of NRAM up and running in their labs.  These arrays are writing data as fast as 3 nanoseconds while producing reasonable heat and consuming what is described as low power.  Perhaps even more important in a market which is currently quite worried about the lifetime of flash memory, this nanotube based RAM has no write limit whatsoever and if it makes it into SSDs it will assuage the fears many users currently have.  The memory works based on resistance, when the tubes are not touching they are in a state of high resistance which represents a 0 and when touching they have low resistance and represent a 1.  The stiffness of the nanotubes keeps them in a separated state until close enough that the Van der Waals force keeps them touching ensures that this will be non-volatile RAM and will retain data without an external power source.  Hopefully we will be seeing more on this soon.

"Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are cylindrical carbon allotropes, molecules up to a millimetre long but just a nanometer thick, and have a length-to-diameter of up to 132,000,000:1. Their walls are made up of single-atom-thick carbon sheets – graphene. CNTs are members of the fullerene family and their properties include the ability to conduct electricity as well as copper, while being stronger than steel and as hard as diamond."

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