A concept for molecular electronics exploiting carbon nanotubes as both molecular device elements and molecular wires for

reading and writing information was developed. Each device element is based on a suspended, crossed nanotube geometry that leads to bistable, electrostatically switchable ON/OFF states. The device elements are naturally addressable in large arrays by the carbon nanotube molecular wires making up the devices. These reversible, bistable device elements could be used to construct nonvolatile random access memory and logic function tables at an integration level approaching 1012elements per square centimeter and an element operation frequency in excess of 100 gigahertz. The viability of this concept is demonstrated by detailed calculations and by the experimental realization of a reversible, bistable nanotube-based bit.

NANO RAM

RAM Random access memory ( RAM) is a type of data storage used in computers. It takes the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order that is, at random and without the physical movement of the storage medium or a physical reading head. Types of RAM Non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) is the general name used to describe any type of random access memory which does not lose its information when power is turned off. ROM EPROM (Erasable programmable read-only memory) EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) Flash memory Upcoming MRAM (Magneto resistive Random Access Memory ) RRAM (Resistive Random Access Memory ) NRAM

Volatile memory:( volatile storage or primary storage device) is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information, unlike non-volatile memory which does not require a maintained power supply. DRAM SRAM Upcoming Z-RAM (Zero capacitor RAM) TTRAM (Twin Transistor RAM)

INTRODUCTION Nano-RAM, is a proprietary computer memory technology from the company NANTERO. It is a type of nonvolatile random access memory based on the mechanical position of carbon nano tube deposited on a chip-like substrate. The proprietary NRAM design, invented by Dr. Thomas Rueckes, Nantero's Chief Technology Officer, uses carbon nanotubes as the active memory elements. What is carbon Nano tube? Carbon nano tubes (CNTs) are a recently discovered allotrope of carbon. Carbon nano tubes have amazing properties. It is stronger than steel and as hard as diamond. The wall of a single-walled carbon Nano tube is only one carbon atom thick and the tube diameter is approximately 50,000 times smaller than a human hair. Nantero has created multiple prototype devices, including an array of ten billion suspended nano tube junctions on a single silicon wafer. NRAM technology will achieve very high memory densities: at least 10-100 times with the current best. Nantero's design for NRAM involves the use of suspended nanotube junctions as memory bits, with the "up" position representing bit zero (Off) and the "down" position representing bit one (On). Bits are switched between states through the application of electrical fields. The wafer (A small adhesive disk of paste) was produced using only standard semiconductor processes, maximizing compatibility with existing semiconductor factories. 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. In Nantero's technology, each NRAM "cell" consists of a number of nano tubes suspended on insulating "lands" over a metal electrode. At rest the nano tubes lie above the electrode "in the air", about 13 nm above it in the current versions. How it works?

Nanteros nanotech RAM chip applies electrical charges to nanotubes suspended over an electrode. Applying the opposite type of charge to the tubes and the electrode causes the tubes to bend down, touch, and bind to the electrode, creating an electrical connection. Applying the same type of charge to the tubes and electrode causes the tubes to bend upward, creating no electrical connection. The system reads these two states as binary datas ones and zeros. The high-capacity NRAM chip maintains stored data when a host devices power is shut off and promises to be fast and energy efficient.

Benefits of NRAM Permanently nonvolatile High speed (comparable to SRAM ) Small cell size ( comparable to DRAM ) Unlimited lifetime Immunes to soft errors CMOS-compatible Process Flow Can be manufactured in any CMOS semiconductor fab Requires no new equipment No technology limitation for scaling Applications Computers and Laptops (Enabling instant-on performance, with no waiting for boot-up) Mobile devices (Faster storage of more data for PDAs and handhelds) Embedded memory (More powerful microprocessor, micro controller, other logic devices ) Replacement of hard drives

Future Nonvolatile memories will enable instant booting of computers. Large memories can be build with nanotube technology. Nonvolatile memories offer much better performance combined with data storage when the power is turned OFF. -----------------------------------------------------------

wikipedia Technology Nantero's technology is based on a well-known effect in carbon nanotubes where crossed nanotubes on a flat surface can either be touching or slightly separated in the vertical direction (normal to the substrate) due to Van der Waal's interactions. In Nantero's technology, each NRAM "cell" consists of a number of nanotubes suspended on insulating "lands" over a metal electrode. At rest the nanotubes lie above the electrode "in the air", about 13 nm above it in the current versions, stretched between the two lands. A small dot of gold is deposited on top of the nanotubes on one of the lands, providing an electrical connection, or terminal. A second electrode lies below the surface, about 100 nm away. Normally, with the nanotubes suspended above the electrode, a small voltage applied between the terminal and upper electrode will result in no current flowing. This represents a "0" state. However if a larger voltage is applied between the two electrodes, the nanotubes will be pulled towards the upper electrode until they touch it. At this point a small voltage applied between the terminal and upper electrode will allow current to flow (nanotubes are conductors), representing a "1" state. The state can be changed by reversing the polarity of the charge applied to the two electrodes. What causes this to act as a memory is that the two positions of the nanotubes are both stable. In the off position the mechanical strain on the tubes is low, so they will naturally remain in this position and continue to read "0". When the tubes are pulled into contact with the upper electrode a new force, the tiny Van der Waals force, comes into play and attracts the tubes enough to overcome the mechanical strain. Once in this position the tubes will again happily remain there and continue to read "1". These positions are fairly resistant to outside interference like radiation that can erase or flip memory in a conventional DRAM. NRAMs are built by depositing masses of nanotubes on a pre-fabricated chip containing rows of bar-shaped electrodes with the slightly taller insulating layers between them. Tubes in the "wrong" location are then removed, and the gold terminals deposited on top. Any number of methods can be used to select a single cell for writing, for instance the second set of electrodes can be run in the opposite direction, forming a grid, or they can be selected by adding voltage to the terminals as well, meaning that only those selected cells have a total voltage high enough to cause the flip. Currently the method of removing the unwanted nanotubes makes the system impractical. The accuracy and size of the epitaxy machinery is considerably "larger" that the cell size otherwise possible. Existing experimental cells have very low densities compared to existing systems, some new method of construction will have to be introduced in order to make the system practical. [edit] Advantages

NRAM has a density, at least in theory, similar to that of DRAM. DRAM consists of a number of capacitors, which are essentially two small metal plates with a thin insulator between them. NRAM is similar, with the terminals and electrodes being roughly the same size as the plates in a DRAM, the nanotubes between them being so much smaller they add nothing to the overall size. However it seems there is a minimum size at which a DRAM can be built, below which there is simply not enough charge being stored to be able to effectively read it. NRAM appears to be limited only by the current state of the art in lithography. This means that NRAM may be able to become much denser than DRAM, meaning that it will also be less expensive, if it becomes possible to control the locations of carbon nanotubes at the scale the semiconductor industry can control the placement of devices on silicon. Additionally, unlike DRAM, NRAM does not require power to "refresh" it, and will retain its memory even after the power is removed. Additionally the power needed to write to the device is much lower than a DRAM, which has to build up charge on the plates. This means that NRAM will not only compete with DRAM in terms of cost, but will require much less power to run, and as a result also be much faster (write performance is largely determined by the total charge needed). NRAM can theoretically reach performance similar to SRAM, which is faster than DRAM but much less dense, and thus much more expensive. In comparison with other NVRAM ("Non-Volatile RAM") technologies, NRAM has the potential to be even more advantageous. The most common form of NVRAM today is Flash RAM, which combines a bistable transistor circuit known as a flip-flop (also the basis of SRAM) with a high-performance insulator wrapped around one of the transistor's bases. After being written to, the insulator traps electrons in the base electrode, locking it into the "1" state. However, in order to change that bit the insulator has to be "overcharged" to erase any charge already stored in it. This requires relatively high voltage, about 10 volts, much more than a battery can provide. Flash systems thus have to include a "charge pump" that slowly builds up power and then releases it at higher voltage. This process is not only very slow, but degrades the insulators as well. For this reason Flash has a limited lifetime, between 10,000 and 1,000,000 "writes" before the device will no longer operate effectively. NRAM potentially avoids all of these issues. The read and write process are both "low energy" in comparison to Flash (or DRAM for that matter), meaning that NRAM can result in longer battery life in conventional devices. It may also be much faster to write than either, meaning it may be used to replace both. A modern cell phone will often include Flash memory for storing phone numbers and such, DRAM for higher performance working memory because flash is too slow, and additionally some SRAM in the CPU because DRAM is too slow for its own use. With NRAM all of these may be replaced, with some NRAM placed on the CPU to act as the CPU cache, and more in other chips replacing both the DRAM and Flash. [edit] Comparison with other proposed systems

NRAM is one of a variety of new memory systems, many of which claim to be "universal" in the same fashion as NRAM replacing everything from Flash to DRAM to SRAM. The only alternative memory currently ready for commercial use is ferroelectric RAM (FRAM or FeRAM). FeRAM adds a small amount of a ferro-electric material in an otherwise "normal" DRAM cell, the state of the field in the material encoding the bit in a non-destructive format. FeRAM has all of the advantages of NRAM, although the smallest possible cell size is much larger than for NRAM. FeRAM is currently in use in a number of applications where the limited number of writes in Flash is an issue. The FeRAM read operation is inherently destructive, requiring a restoring write operation afterwards. Other more speculative memory systems include MRAM and PRAM. MRAM is based on a grid of magnetic tunnel junctions. Key to MRAM's potential is the way it reads the memory using the tunnel magnetoresistive effect, allowing it to read the memory both non-destructively and with very little power. Unfortunately, the 1st generation MRAM, which utilized field induced writing,[1] reached a limit in terms of size, which kept it much larger than existing Flash devices. However, two new MRAM techniques are currently in development and hold the promises of overcoming the size limitaion and making MRAM more competitive even with Flash memory. The techniques are Thermal Assisted Switching (TAS),[2] which is being developed by Crocus Technology, and Spin Torque Transfer (STT) on which Crocus, Hynix, IBM, and several other companies are working.[3] PRAM is based on a technology similar to that in a writable CD or DVD, using a phasechange material that changes its magnetic or electrical properties instead of its optical ones. The PRAM material itself is scalable but requires a larger current source. Due to the massive investment in Flash factories (fabs), no alternative memory has yet been able to even replace Flash in the market. Nantero, Inc. is building a high density nonvolatile random access memory chip, which can replace DRAM (dynamic RAM), SRAM (static RAM), flash memory, and ultimately hard disk storage--in other words a universal memory chip suitable for countless existing and new applications in the field of electronics. The target markets in aggregate exceed $100B in revenue per year. Nantero's product is called NRAM (Nanotube-based/ Nonvolatile RAM), developed using proprietary concepts and methods derived from leading-edge research in nanotechnology. NRAM engineering samples manufactured in production CMOS fabs have already been shipped to multiple selected customers. The NRAM memory is also in development in various customer fabs worldwide for specific product applications by Nanterolicensees. The NRAM samples are multimegabit arrays that demonstrate productionready yield, high speeds (20ns SET/RESET), high reliability (>10 years at 300C),

extremely low power consumption, and many other attractive characteristics. These NRAM samples were designed to provide customers with sufficient data for design of their own Gbit to Tbit-scale standalone and embedded memory products using NRAM technology. Nantero's design for NRAM involves the use of carbon nanotube-based resistance change elements. Bits are switched between conductive and non-conductive states through the application of write pulses of controlled voltage and current. NRAM production uses only standard semiconductor processes, maximizing compatibility with existing semiconductor factories. 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 millions of songs, cell phones with terabytes of memory, high-speed network servers and much more. The proprietary NRAM design, invented by Dr. Thomas Rueckes, Nantero's Chief Technology 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. Dr. Rueckes' pioneering design takes advantage of these unique properties while cleverly integrating nanotubes with traditional semiconductor technologies for immediate manufacturability. NRAM seminar report.doc (Size: 1.1 MB / Downloads: 189) INTRODUCTION NRAM, the wonder product of nanotechnology, is the patented trademark of the non volatile memory produced by Nanterno Inc, USA. The companys objective is to deliver a product that will replace all existing forms of memory, such as DRAM (Dynamic RAM), SRAM (Static RAM), and flash memory, and ultimately hard disk storage. In other words a universal memory chip suitable for countless existing and new applications in the field of electronics. 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 non volatile chip, it will provide permanent data storage even without power. The proprietary NRAM, design, invented by Dr.Thomas Rueckes, Nanternos chief Scientific Officer, uses carbon nanotubes as the active memory elements. Carbon nanotubes are the 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.

WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY THE BEGINNING In 1960, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman predicted that by the year 2000 products would be built one molecule or one atom at a time. This was a truly bold vision because it would represent a new paradigm for manufacturing and constitute a fundamental economic shift analogous to a second industrial revolution. This shift is referred today as the nanotechnology revolution, and many people consider Dr.Feynmans quote the birth of nanotechnology. The National Science Foundation predicts that by 2010, nanotechnology will pervade virtually every corner of the economy and represent $1 trillion in goods and services. THE WORD The term nanotechnology is based on the root nanos, meaning one billionth. It refers to technology that uses components or features that measure 100 nanometers or less. A structure that is one nanometer is one billionth of a meter-it would take approximately 150,000 such structures to span the diameter of a human hair. THE MOTIVATION Why do companies want to get small? Because getting small means getting smarter, more powerful and more economical. Consider the first computers developed in the 1940s. They were the size of a large room, were very expensive to build, required virtually constant maintenance, needed a considerable amount of electricity to power, and were useable only by a handful of highly trained specialists. Compare that to todays common laptop computers. They are millions of times faster and more powerful than the first computers, thousands of times smaller, a mere fraction of the cost, require virtually no maintenance, run on very little electricity and are useable by almost anyone. Miniaturization has led to an exponential growth in computers effect on our everyday lives because: (1) processing power has enabled them to do an almost unthinkable amount of work almost instantaneously; and (2) large percentages of our population and businesses are able to computers as diverse tools because they are easy to use and relatively inexpensive to build and operate. Virtually all of the major advances in the electronic industries, from the vacuum tube to modern computer chip, are a direct result of miniaturization and utilizing new materials. Nanotechnology is the next step in the evolution of miniaturization. It increases the value of existing products and opens the door to new technologies and products. THEORY At the simplest level, nanotechnology is the manipulation single atoms and molecules to create objects that can be smaller than 100 nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, which is about a hundred-thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, or 10 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in coal we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air, we can make potatoes. There are two more concepts commonly associated with Nanotechnology: 1. Positional assembly 2. Self replication

Positional assembly refers to the arrangement of molecules so as to get the right molecular parts in the right places. The need for positional assembly implies an interest in molecular robotics eg., robotic devices that are molecular both in their size and precision. These molecular scale positional devices are likely to resemble very small versions of their everyday macroscopic counterparts. The self replicating systems are able both to make copies of themselves and to manufacture useful products. If we can design and build one such system the manufacturing costs for more such systems and the products they make (assuming they can make copies of themselves in some reasonably inexpensive environment) will be very low. You wont think about installing Microsoft Office anymore. Youll think about growing software. The line is blurring in several ways. Scientists are learning to imitate biological patterns; biological entities are being used in technology products; and in the distant future, nanomachines may be circulating through our bloodstreams, attacking tumors and dispersing medicine. NOT JUST COMPUTERS The computer industry is just one example of the advantages related to miniaturization. Getting small is a means of increasing the power and value of diverse products and services in most industries. For instance, many advances in biotechnology and the development of new drugs are the direct result of miniaturization and utilization of novel materials. As with computing power, diagnostic and research power increase as tools decrease in size. Getting small allows biotechnology companies and researchers to do more complex experiments in shorter periods of time, for less money, using less material. This greatly accelerates discovery and ultimately shortens the time from concept to market for new advanced drugs and other products. Further, nanotechnology enables companies and researchers to design revolutionary new products using new materials and substances not accessible with other technologies. Dr.Feynman was correct in his prediction of building devices from the ground up-atom by atom or molecule by molecule. He was incorrect, however, in his prediction that this would occur routinely by the year 2000. The question has been, how would you build nano-scale structures and manipulate quickly and cheaply? CARBON NANOTUBES Carbon nanotubes are a product of nanotechnology. They were invented by Sumayyo Ejyma. A carbon nanotube can be single walled or multi walled. A single walled nanotube is only one carbon atom thick. It can be considered as a sheet of graphite curled into the form of tube. Its properties can be changed by changing the direction of the curl. It can be made highly conducting or semiconducting based on the direction of the curl. A carbon nanotube is highly elastic. It can be made in the shape of a spring, brush or spiral. They have very low specific weight. Another very useful property of the nanotubes is that their high mechanical and tensile strength. A carbon nanotube can be made into a length of up to 100 microns. They are chemically inert. In near future it is possible that microprocessors may be converted into nanoprocessors. Researchers are in progress to find out the possibility of using nanotechnology in microprocessors. The chemical inertness property of the carbon nanotubes makes them suitable for making containers for carrying hazardous and highly reactive chemicals.

Fig 1:-Nanotubes produced with the FeMo catalyst Fig 2:-Nanotubes produced with Fe70Pt20 catalyst NANOLITHOGRAPHY Conceptually, the nanolithography method is quite simple. It is the process by which molecules of virtually any material are literally drawn onto virtually any smooth surface. The basis of this idea was first accepted over 4,000 years ago, when a quill pen was dragged across a piece of paper to deposit ink. A major difference between these two processes, however, is that quill-drawn lines are more than 1,000,000 times larger those drawn by the nanolithography process, which can be smaller than 10nm wide. We reasoned that, when you get down to it, drawing is simply building, but at a very small scale. Therefore, nanolithography could have great value as a method of ultra-small, or nano-scale, manufacturing.

FABRICATION OF NRAM This nanoelectromechanical memory, called NRAM, is a memory with actual moving parts, with dimensions measured in nanometers. Its carbon nano-tube-based technology takes advantage of Vander Waals forces to create the basic on-off junctions of a bit. Van der Waals forces are interactions between atoms that enable non-covalent binding. They rely on electron attractions that arise only at the nano-scale level as a force to be reckoned with. The company is using this property in its design to integrate nano-scale material properties with established CMOS fabrication techniques. A nanotube is a form of fullerene carbon in which the hexagonally connected graphite sheet is curled up to form a tube of nanometer-scale diameters they grow, the tubes align perpendicular to each other with a slight gap between each pair. Nanterno has said that each junction contains multiple nanotubes, providing redundancy and protection against catastrophic bit-failure. Nanterno also said the array was produced using only standard semiconductor processes, thereby making manufacture of the NRAM in existing wafer fabs more likely. It also results in substantial redundancy for the memory, because each memory bit depends not on one single nanotube, but upon a large number of nanotubes that resemble a fabric. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to place the nanotubes in the correct positions. Each nanotube is approximately 50-to-100,000 times smaller than a piece of your hair. This means theyre about 1-to-2 nanometers in diameter, and a nanometer is a billionth of a meter. To build the array of nanotubes, Nanterno used a manufacturing method that involved depositing a very thin layer of carbon nanotubes over the entire surface of a wafer, and then using lithography and etching to remove the nanotubes that are not in the correct position to serve as elements in the array. This manufacturing method solved the problem of growing nanotubes reliably in large arrays. At the end of our process only the nanotubes in the correct positions are remaining. The present size of the array is 10GBit, but the process could be used to make even larger arrays. Nanterno claims to have

developed an array of ten billion suspended nanotube junctions on a single silicon. The main variable now controlling the size is the resolution of the lithography equipment. STORAGE IN NRAM NRAM works by balancing the nanotubes on ridges of silicon. Under differing electric charges, the tubes can be physically swung into one of two positions representing one and zero. Because the tubes are so smallunder a thousand of atomsthis movement is very fast and needs very little power, and because the tubes are a thousand times as conductive as copper it is very easy to sense their position to read back the data. Once in position, the tubes stay there until a signal resets them: with a tensile strength twenty times than of a steel, they are expected to survive around a trillion write cycles. The bit itself is not stored in the nanotube, but rather is stored as the position of the nanotube. Up is bit one, down is bit zero. Bits are switched between states through the application of electrical fields. The technology works by changing the charge placed on a lattice work of crossed nanotubes. By altering the charges, engineers can cause the tubes to bind together or separate, creating the ones and zeros that form the basis of computer memory. If we have two nanotubes perpendicular to each other, one is positive and another is negative, they will bent together and touch. If we give both of them similar charges, they will repel. These two different states allow us to store information as ones and zeroes with the up position representing a one and the down position representing a zero. The chip stays in the same state until you make another change in the electric field. So when you turn the computer off, it doesnt erase the memory. We can keep all your data in the RAM and it gives your computer an instant boot. Reading from the NRAM is done by measuring the resistance between the nanotube and the electrode below. If the nanotube is up, you obviously have a vastly different resistance than if the nanotube is down and touching the electrode. So if the resistance is very high, the stored bit is one, otherwise zero. ADVANTAGES OF NRAM NRAM is faster and denser than all existing memory technologies. It uses only one tenth of the power used by existing DRAM or flash memory to store information. NRAM is a nonvolatile memory. That means that when you turn the power off, you don't lose the data. And that means that you never have to wait for your computer to boot up again; it turns on instantly. Each memory bit in an NRAM depends not on a single nanotube but on a large number of nanotubes woven together. Thus the NRAM offers substantial redundancy of memory. NRAM is highly resistant to environmental forces (heat, cold and magnetism). NRAM can be manufactured using the existing machineries in semiconductor factories. So no high capital is needed for its production. NRAM is compatible with all existing hardware devices such as the PC, digital camera, mp3 players etc. CHALLENGES FACED Nantero seems to lag behind MRAM developers -- Motorola and IBM, to name two -- in bringing its technology out of the research phase and into actual product development. The downside, is the fact that the DRAM market is oversupplied and those chipmakers frequently have to sell at a loss, making it difficult for any new technology to break in.

BARRIERS TO MARKET Nantero is developing an alternate technology in a field that already offers multiple memory options. The company will need to convince potential users of the benefits of NRAM over existing methods. USES OF NRAM NRAM could enable instant-on computers which boot and reboot instantly, PDAs with 10 gigabytes of memory, MP3 players with thousands of songs and replace flash memories in digital cameras and cell phones. Other possible uses include high speed network servers. And because the technology is considerable faster and denser than DRAM, Nanterno believes NRAM could eventually replace hard disk storage. FUTURE SCOPE Nanotubes, atomic-scale carbon based structures, are set to begin the migration from the lab into the wafer fab. In the first effort of its kind, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has begun to develop a standard that will define electrical test methods for individual nanotubes. The standard will seek to establish a common metrics foundation for the many research programs underway on the use of nanotubes in electronics. The standard, IEEE P1650 , Standard Test Methods for Measurement of Electrical Proper ties of Carbon Nanotubes, will recommend the tools and procedures needed to generate reproducible electrical data on the structures. The initial meeting of the IEEE P1650 Working Group will be held at IEEE head quarters in Piscataway, NJ, US in September. The efforts applied in nanotechnology have surfaced a strong need for common ways to evaluate the electrical characteristics of nanotubes, so what is done by one group can be confirmed by others. The standard will seek to meet this need. The tests defined in the standard will help form a bridge between the lab and the production. In May 2003, Nanterno announced it had created an array of billion suspended nanotube junctions on a single wafer. The process involves depositing a very thin layer of carbon nanotubes over the entire surface of the wafer, then using lithography and etching to remove the nanotubes that are not in the right position to serve as elements in the array. The announcement was significant because it demonstrates we can create NRAM using standard equipment, which means NRAM can be made in any existing factory. Nanterno hopes to have a chip storing one gigabyte (one billion bytes) out by 2003. Within three to five years, however, the company hopes to have a chip with capacity measured in terabytes (one trillion bytes). CONCLUSION It's hard to imagine a more exciting area than nanoelectronics. Every day at our lab our engineers are coming up with new ideas and new ways to build products on a molecular level that have never been done before. And the whole field of nanotechnology is one that will, over the next few decades, affect just about every area of human life, from

electronics to medical care and beyond, so it's great to be right there on the leading edge. Thus, with the beginning of the usage of NRAM which gives instant-on computers, we can obtain a very fast and ever existing Random Access Memory for very vast applications. Reference: http://www.seminarprojects.com/Thread-nram-technology-seminarreport#ixzz1XBZF8bSS Nantero has developed a CMOS-friendly proprietary CNT process that it will install at SVTCs two state-of-the-art development fabs, in San Jose, Calif., and Austin, Texas. Together, Nantero and SVTC can offer CNT device development capabilities for customers targeting a wide range of applications including photovoltaics (solar cells), LEDs, sensors, MEMS and other semiconductor-based devices. Nram is described at wikipedia NRAM may be able to become much denser than DRAM. NRAM does not require power to "refresh" it, and will retain its memory even after the power is removed. Additionally the power needed to write to the device is much lower than a DRAM. NRAM can theoretically reach speeds similar to SRAM, which is faster than DRAM but much less dense, and thus much more expensive. NRAM is one of a variety of new memory systems, many of which claim to be "universal" in the same fashion as NRAM replacing everything from Flash to DRAM to SRAM. Nantero has been claimed NRAM release dates since 2005

SVTC said its first customer is prototyping a carbon nanotube-based random-access memory (NRAM). Nantero claims NRAMs could be up to 20 times denser than current flash memories using 22-nm square bit cells compared to 100-nm cells for current 16Gbit flash memories. 320-Gbit/chip densities for NRAM using current lithography. Using next generation lithography, Nantero claims nanotube thin films could ultimately be capable of terabit-per-chip capacities by squeezing bit cells down to as small as 5-nm square. "Beyond NRAM, there are also applications in displays, touch screens, solar cells, sensors and MEMS devices," said Greg Schmergel, Nantero co-founder, president and CEO. "Our process puts carbon nanotube thin films on a variety of substrates in a manner that can be mass-produced in any CMOS foundry. You can make the films thinner and thicker, change their density, even make them trasparent for displays and touch screens," he claimed. Definition Nano-RAM, is a proprietary computer memory technology from the company Nantero and NANOMOTOR is invented by University of bologna and California nano systems.NRAM is a type of nonvolatile random access memory based on the mechanical position of carbon nanotubes deposited on a chip-like substrate. In theory the small size of the nanotubes allows for very high density memories. Nantero also refers to it as

NRAM in short, but this acronym is also commonly used as a synonym for the more common NVRAM, which refers to all nonvolatile RAM memories.Nanomotor is a molecular motor which works continuously without the consumption of fuels. It is powered by sunlight. The research are federally funded by national science foundation and national academy of science. Carbon Nanotubes Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are a recently discovered allotrope of carbon. They take the form of cylindrical carbon molecules and have novel properties that make them potentially useful in a wide variety of applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics, and other fields of materials science. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized. A nanotube is a member of the fullerene structural family, which also includes buckyballs. Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape, a nanotube is cylindrical, with at least one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure. Their name is derived from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is on the order of a few nanometers (approximately 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several millimeters in length. There are two main types of nanotubes: single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs). Manufacturing a nanotube is dependent on applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridization. Nanotubes are composed entirely of sp2 bonds, similar to those of graphite. This bonding structure, stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond, provides the molecules with their unique strength. Nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by Van der Waals forces. Under high pressure, nanotubes can merge together, trading some sp2 bonds for sp3 bonds, giving great possibility for producing strong, unlimited-length wires through high-pressure nanotube linking. Fabrication Of NRAM This nano electromechanical memory, called NRAM, is a memory with actual moving parts, with dimensions measured in nanometers. Its carbon nanotube based technology makes advantage of vaanderwaals force to create basic on off junctions of a bit. Vaanderwaals forces interaction between atoms that enable noncovalant binding. They rely on electron attractions that arise only at nano scale levels as a force to be reckoned with. The company is using this property in its design to integrate nanoscale material property with established cmos fabrication technique. Storage In NRAM NRAM works by balancing the on ridges of silicon. Under differing electric charges, the tubes can be physically swung into one or two positions representing one and zeros. Because the tubes are very small-under a thousands of time-this movement is very fast and needs very little power, and because the tubes are a thousand times conductive as copper it is very to sense to read back the data. Once in position the tubes stay there until a signal resets them.

The bit itself is not stored in the nano tubes, but rather is stored as the position of the nanotube. Up is bit 0 and down is bit 1.Bits are switched between the states by the application of the electric field. The technology work by changing the charge placed on a latticework of crossed nanotube. By altering the charges, engineers can cause the tubes to bind together or separate, creating ones and zeros that form the basis of computer memory. If we have two nano tubes perpendicular to each other one is positive and other negative, they will bend together and touch. If we have two similar charges they will repel. These two positions are used to store one and zero. The chip will stay in the same state until you make another change in the electric field. So when you turn the computer off, it doesn't erase the memory .We can keep all the data in the NRAM and gives your computer an instant boot. In NVRAM, each bit has its own memory address, and can be part of the computer's addressable memory along with the volatile static and dynamic RAM (SRAM and DRAM) chips shipped with the computer. NVRAM are devices which are able to retain information when electrical power is removed. The first semiconductor NVRAM technology was battery-backed SRAM. It was created by the simple expedient of providing a rechargeable battery to keep power applied to the SRAM when system power was removed. This is still in use and works well for limited time periods, but the batteries take up useful space, and eventually discharge. Computer users who store their computers without power for long periods of time find that the units lose their CMOS setup information because it is typically stored in battery-backed SRAM. Today, so-called flash memory takes the place of battery-backed SRAM in a number of applications. Most notably, flash has made possible compact "memory sticks," which are just flash memory chips packaged along with a USB interface. When plugged into a USB port, they appear as a "removable drive." They serve the same function as floppy disks. Flash memory can be (and is) used for more reliable CMOS Setup storage and virtually any other NVRAM application. Flash's main drawback is a limitation on the number of read/write cycles its cells can endure. A second type of NVRAM that is currently gaining popularity is magneto resistive RAM (MRAM). MRAM's greatest advantage over flash is a virtually unlimited number of read/write cycles. A third NVRAM technology currently in production is the ferroelectric RAM (FRAM). Like DRAM, FRAM stores information as voltage on a capacitor. Instead of using a linear dielectric, such as silicon dioxide (basically, glass), FRAM uses a non-linear ferroelectric dielectric, such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT). PZT is a crystalline material whose crystal unit cells have a permanent electric dipole moment. Applying an electric field (by putting a charging voltage across the capacitor) causes atomic rearrangements within the unit cells to align all the dipole moments with the impressed electric field.

Removing the supply voltage leaves the dipoles still aligned, so the potential difference between the plates persists. Other NVRAM technologies under development include phase-change RAM (PRAM), Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS), Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM), Nano-RAM (NRAM), and perhaps others. All of these are under development. Email INTRODUCTION: Today the world is of digital. All the electronic devices are formalized to manipulate the digital data. The back -bone of todays research and development The Computer is also a digital device. Digital by name deals with digits and all the gadgets available today (like PDAs, laptops, etc) need to manipulate the digital data. To manipulate first we have to store it at a place. Thus MEMORY in t odays world plays a key role and a constant research to improve the memory in today s electronic gadgets is ON. RAM (random access memory) is the main storage device in all digital systems. The speed of the system mainly depends on how speed and vast the RAM is. Today with increasing power need of man even the POWER consumed is also a major part to look at. By generations RAM also had under gone many changes. Some of the versions of RAMs which are in use are DRAM, SRAM and FLASH MEMORY. DRAM (dynamic RAM) although has a capability to hold large amounts of data it is slower and volatile. SRAM (static RAM) even superior to DRAM in speed but less denser . Even this is volatile in nature. Over coming the volatile nature of these two FLASH MEMORY is the latest of today random access memories. Even this fails in power saving. Overcoming all these failures of above mentioned RAMs , researchers developed a new RAM which unlike the semiconductor technology alone used by the former, uses a combination of NANOTECHNOLOGY and contemporary SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGY and is given the name NRAM. THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING NANOTUBE MEMORY: Nano-RAM, is a proprietary computer memory technology from the company Nantero. It is a type of nonvolatile random access memory bas ed on the mechanical position of carbon nanotubes deposited on a chip -like substrate. In theory the small size of the nanotubes allows for very high density memories. Na ntero also refers to it as NRAM in short, but this acronym is also commonly used as a s ynonym for the more common NVRAM (nonvolatile random access memory), which refers to all nonvolatile RAM memories. The active element used in this is a CARBON NANOTUBE. CARBON NANOTUBE: Carbon nanotubes are cylinders, measuring a nanometer or so in diamet er, that display a surface of hexagonal carbon rings that give the material the appearance of a honeycomb or chicken wire. The chemical bonds between carbon atoms in nanotubes are stronger than in diamond. Carbon nanotubes are 50 times stronger than steel, yet five times less dense. These are highly elastic and resilient to heat, and have large surface area.

Nanotubes conduct electrically better than copper, which makes them a contender for replacing the delicate wires that connect components together inside computer chips. But only that, these can carry heat far more efficiently than diamond, one of the best heat conductors around. So if the processor chips are made from nanotubes, there would be little risk of burning up. No matter how hard a nanotube is squeezed, it will bend and buckle without breaking, springing back into shape as soon as the external force is removed. DESIGN and DESCRIPTION: The design is quite simple. Nanotubes can serve as individually addressable electromechanical switches arrayed across the surface of a microchip, storing hundreds of gigabits of information may be even a terabit. An electric field applied to a nanotube would cause it to flex downward into depression etched onto the chips surface, where it would contact rather another nanotube or touch a metallic electrode. Once bent, the nanotubes can remain that way, including when the power is turned off, allowing for nonvolatile operation. Vanderwaals forces, which are weak molecular forces of attractions, would hold the switch in place until application of fields of different polarity causes the nanotube to return to its straightened position. Fig: simple construction of NRAM showing its Various components. respectively, for a random access memory. In its 0state, the nanotube fabric remains suspended above the electrode. When the transistor below the electrode is turned on, the electrode is turned on, the electrode produces an electric field that causes the nanotube fabric to bend and touch the electrode - a configuration that denotes 1 state. This is the principle of a switching device. A nanotube memory is faster much smaller while consuming little power. Due to their extraordinary tensile strength, resilience and very high conductivity, nanotubes can be flexed up and down million times without any damage and can make a very good switchingcontact. Nanotubes purchased from bulk suppliers are a form of high -tech carbon soot that contains a residue of about 5 percent iron a containment that must be removed before further processing. It requires a complex filtration process to reduce the amount of iron to the parts per billion levels. The purified carbon nanotubes are deposited as a film on the surface of a silicon wafer without interfering with adjoi ning electrical circuitry from which chips are carved. Deposition of nanotubes onto the wafer using a gas vapour requires temperatures so high that the circuitry already in place would be ruined. It is therefore done by spraying a special solvent containing nanotube on the top of the silicon disk spinning like a phonograph record. The thin film of nanotubes left after the solvent is evaporated, is subjected to standard semiconductor lithography and etching, which leave the surface groupings of nanotubes with interconnecting wires. Thereafter, chips are cut from the wafer and encapsulated by the standard IC technology. Advantages: NRAM has a density, at least in theory, similar to that of DRAM. DRAM consists of a number of capacitors, which are essentially two small metal plates with a thin insulator between them. NRAM is similar, with the terminals and electrodes being roughly the same size as the plates in a DRAM, the nanotubes between them being so much smaller

they add nothing to th e overall size. However it seems there is a minimum size at which a DRAM can be built, below which there is simply not enough charge being stored to be able to effectively read it. NRAM appears to be limited only by the current state of art in lithography. This means that NRAM may be able to become much denser than DRAM, meaning that it will also be less expensive, if it becomes possible to control the locations of carbon nanotubes at the scale the Semiconductor Industry can control the placement of devices on SILICON. Additionally, unlike DRAM, NRAM does not require power to "refresh" it, and will retain its memory even after the power is removed. Additionally the power needed to write to the device is much lower than a DRAM, which has to build up charge on the plates. This means that NRAM will not only compete with DRAM in terms of cost, but will require much less power to run, and as a result also be much faster (write speed is largely determined by the total charge needed). NRAM can theoretically reach sp eeds similar to SRAM, which is faster than DRAM but much less dense, and thus much more expensive. In comparison with other NVRAM technologies, NRAM has the potential to be even more advantageous. The most common form of NVRAM today is Flash RAM, which combines a bistable transistor circuit known as a flipflop (also the basis of SRAM) with a high-performance insulator wrapped around one of the transistor's bases. After being written to, the insulator traps electrons in the base electrode, locking it into th e "1" state. However, in order to change that bit the insulator has to be "overcharged" to erase any charge already stored in it. This requires high voltage, about 10 volts, much more than a battery can provide. Flash systems thus have to include a "charge pump" that slowly builds up power and then releases it at higher voltage. This process is not only very slow, but degrades the insulators as well. For this reason Flash has a limited lifetime, between 10,000 and 1,000,000 "writes" before the device will n o longer operate effectively. NRAM potentially avoids all of these issues. The read and write process are both "low energy" in comparison to Flash (or DRAM for that matter), meaning that NRAM can result in longer battery life in conventional devices. It ma y also be much faster to write than either, meaning it may be used to replace both. A modern cellphone will often include Flash memory for storing phone numbers and such, DRAM for higher speed working memory because flash is too slow, and additionally some SRAM in the CPU because DRAM is too slow for its own use. With NRAM all of these may be replaced, with some NRAM placed on the CPU to act as the CPU cache, and more in other chips replacing both the DRAM and Flash. Comparison with other proposed systems NRAM is one of a variety of new memory systems, many of which claim to be "universal" in the same fashion as NRAM -replacing everything from Flash to DRAM to SRAM. The only system currently ready for commercial use is ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM or FeRAM). FeRAM adds a small amount of a ferro -electric material in an otherwise "normal" DRAM cell, the state of the field in the material encoding the bit in a non-destructive format. FeRAM has all of the advantages of NRAM, although the smallest possible cell size is much larger than for NRAM. FeRAM is currently in use in a number of applications where the limited number of writes in Flash is an issue, but due to

the massive investment in Flash factories (fabs), it has not yet been able to even replace Flash in the market. Other more speculative memory systems include MRAM and PRAM. MRAM is based on a magnetic effect similar to that utilized in modern hard drives, the memory as a whole consisting of a grid of small magnetic "dots" each holding one bit. Key to MRAM's potential is the way it reads the memory using the magneto -restrictive effect, allowing it to read the memory both non -destructively and with very little power. Unfortunately it appears MRAM is already reaching it's fundamental smallest cell size, already much larger than existing Flash devices. PRAM is based on a technology similar to that in a writable CD or DVD, using a phase -change material that changes its magnetic or electrical properties instead of its optical ones. PRAM appears to have a small cell size as well, although current devices are nowhere near small enough to find if there is some practical limit. CONCLUSION: Though this technology today is limited to laboratories and not economically viable, some new method of construction will have to be introduced in order to make the system practical. Once this is d one we can see the enabling of instant-on computers, which boot and reboot instantly with un-imaginable memory sizes , as well as highdensity portable memory - MP3 players with 1000s of songs, PDAs with 10 gigabytes of memory, highspeed network servers and much more. Reference: http://www.seminarprojects.com/Thread-nano-technology-in-memorydevices-full-report#ixzz1XYkaibcC Bendable nanotubes store bits By Eric Smalley, Technology Research News One of the first steps to building blazingly fast, dirt cheap and vanishingly small molecular computers is figuring out how the devices would hold data. Carbon nanotubes have looked like ready-made microscopic wires to researchers for long time, and the idea of building memory arrays from perpendicular strands of them is nothing new. One of the challenges, however, has been figuring out how to control the junctions where the wires cross in order to create the on and off states necessary for binary computing. Most approaches have focused on inserting spring-like molecules between the crossed nanotube wires. A different approach that uses the mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes has paid off for researchers at Harvard University who have built a tiny memory device that could be a predecessor to the building blocks of tomorrow's molecular computers. The Harvard team coaxed the nanotubes into making and breaking the connections on their own. Carbon nanotubes come in two forms: semiconducting and metallic. Metallic nanotubes will bend toward a perpendicular semiconducting nanotube when electrically charged. When a metallic nanotube is one to two nanometers away from a semiconducting nanotube, the electrical resistance at the junction is low, creating an on state. When the nanotubes are apart the resistance is much higher, creating an off state.

"The clever thing is it combines both electronic and mechanical properties of single-wall nanotubes," said Yue Wu, an associate professor in the physics and astronomy department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "It gives people hope to make large [memory] arrays. It -- to a certain extent -- has demonstrated experimentally that this can be done." Because carbon nanotubes are so small, little more than a nanometer in diameter, memory arrays built from them could house 1012 cross-wire elements per square centimeter. That would be 10,000 to 30,000 times more dense than today's Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) memory chips, said Charles M. Lieber, professor of chemistry at Harvard and leader of the team that developed the nanotube technique. "It's much higher density than will ever be attainable with silicon [wafer] technology," he said. In principle these memory arrays could also be 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than today's memory chips, he added. Perhaps as significant as the scale of Harvard's nanotube memory device is its ability to remain in either the on or off state without a continuous electrical charge. Most computer memory today only works when the computer is on because it needs to be continuously refreshed. Non-volatile silicon wafer memory exists, but it is much less dense than standard computer memory. Carbon nanotube arrays could also be used to build computer processors. "We think in the longer term actually making a computer almost entirely based on this type of architecture is a possibility," Lieber said. "They certainly offer the promise of a lot more power. [And realizing] the potential of the assembly approaches that we and other people are using it's going to be low cost." However, there are several hurdles to overcome before anyone is going to be able to produce memory modules from carbon nanotubes. "The distance between the crossed wires has to be controlled fairly precisely, from one to two nanometers," Wu said. "You have to come up with a way that you can assemble many, many of these cross-wires. To make this pattern of nanotubes with precise control of distance -- that's going to be the difficulty. The other difficulty right now [is] when people grow nanotubes, we all grow spaghetti. How to grow straight tubes, that's also something people need to work on." In addition, there is not yet a reliable way to produce separate sets of metallic and semiconducting nanotubes. The Harvard team is working on a way around this problem by using silicon wires for the semiconducting portion of the array, Lieber said. However, this will not produce the same density as a purely nanotube array, he said. A silicon wire-carbon nanotube hybrid memory array could become commercially viable in about two years, according to Lieber. Barring an earlier breakthrough of being able to

build separate semiconducting and metallic nanotubes, purely nanotube memory arrays are five to 10 years away, he said The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research. The Harvard team reported on their findings in a paper in the July 7 issue of the journal Science.