Next Digital Storage Device Could Be As Little As Five Years Away

Scientists make fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts:

each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information – equivalent to 1,000 high quality images – in one cubic centimetre of space.

Experts have developed the technology by melding together organic and inorganic materials in a unique way.

They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier to operate than a CD.

It’s claimed that turning the invention into a commercially viable product might take as little as five years.

The card would not involve any moving parts, such as the laser and motor drive required by compact discs. Its secret is the discovery of a previously unknown property of a commonly-used conductive plastic coating.

US scientists at Princeton University, New Jersey, and computer giants Hewlett-Packard combined the polymer with very thin-film, silicon-based electronics.

….A report in the journal Nature described how the researchers identified a new property of a polymer called PEDOT. [Ananova]

Gigabyte recordable wafers – will they come in itlle tiny jewel cases?

MORE from Scientific American:

The team predicts that one million bits of information could fit into a square millimeter of material the thickness of a sheet of paper. A block just a cubic centimeter in size could contain as many as 1,000 high-quality digital images, the scientists suggest, and producing it wouldn’t require high-temperatures or vacuum chambers.