NRAM will be considerably faster and denser than DRAM, have substantially lower power consumption than DRAM or flash, be as portable as flash memory, and be highly resistant to environmental forces (heat, cold, magnetism). And as a nonvolatile chip, it will provide permanent data storage even without power. Possible uses include the enabling of instant-on computers, which boot and reboot instantly, as well as high-density portable memory - MP3 players with 1000s of songs, PDAs with 10 gigabytes of memory, high-speed network servers and much more.
The proprietary NRAM design, invented by Dr. Thomas Rueckes, Nantero's Chief Scientific Officer, uses carbon nanotubes as the active memory elements. Carbon nanotubes are members of the fullerene family and have amazing properties, including the ability to conduct electricity as well as copper while being stronger than steel and as hard as diamond. The wall of a single-walled carbon nanotube is only one carbon atom thick and the tube diameter is approximately 100,000 times smaller than a human hair. Dr. Rueckes' pioneering design takes advantage of these unique properties while cleverly integrating nanotubes with traditional semiconductor technologies for immediate manufacturability.
