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09:25 AM ET 05/18/99
Hitachi, Cambridge Unveil New Chip
Hitachi, Cambridge Unveil New Chip
TOKYO (AP) _ Japan's Hitachi Ltd. and the University of
Cambridge have developed a computer chip that could lead to smaller
and faster computer equipment and cellular phones, Hitachi said
Tuesday.
The semiconductors, called PLEDM chips, could replace a variety
of today's memory devices, Hitachi said in a press release.
The chips, which could show up in products in five years, pack
information into a smaller space than conventional dynamic random
access memory chips, the main memories in computers today, the
electronics giant said.
In addition, the chips retain their memory even without power.
That feature could make the new technology handy for use in
cellular phones, for example, which must retain phone numbers even
when the batteries fail.
Hitachi's European arm and the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge
University hope to produce memory chips using the technology within
a year and have it on the market within five, they announced in
London on Monday.
DRAM chips are made up of transistors, which regulate the flow
of electricity, and capacitors, which store a charge. The key to
developing the PLEDM chip, an acronym for Phase-state Low Electron
Drive Memory, was to use a second transistor instead of a
capacitor, Hitachi said. |
