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Politics : RAMTRONIAN's Cache Inn
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From: David C. Burns6/17/2008 3:24:55 PM
   of 14464
 
Researchers develop ultra low-cost plastic memory

(Nanowerk News) Researchers at the Zernike Institute of Advanced Materials at the University of Groningen have developed a technology for a plastic ferro-electric diode which they believe will achieve a breakthrough in the development of ultra low-cost plastic memory material. Their findings will be published in the July edition of Nature Materials, a publication of the leading scientific journal Nature.
The newly developed technology is similar to that used in Flash memory chips. In both cases, the memory retains data without being connected to a power source. Flash memory chips are used in memory sticks, MP3 players, cellular phones and in the memory cards of digital cameras. The researchers at the Zernike Institute of Advanced Materials expect the new technology to lead to the development of comparable products possibly even more significant. One product they have in mind is an electronic price tag which could be read radiographically at the cash desk of retail stores, replacing the bar codes currently in use. Another possible application is for the material to be used in packaging material which could warn consumers when a product is nearing its expiration date.
Plastic transistor
In 2005, a joint team of researchers from the University of Groningen and Philips already successfully integrated a ferro-electric polymer into a plastic transistor. Because the ferro-electric material can be switched between two different stable states through the use of a voltage pulse, it operates as a ‘non-volatile’ memory (meaning that the material retains data without being connected to a power source). The disadvantage of such a transistor is that three connections are needed for programming and reading out the memory, complicating the fabrication. The challenge was therefore to realize comparable functionality within a memory component carrying only two connections: a diode.

nanowerk.com
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