Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cts.eiu.edu!bucacs
From: bucacs@ux1.cts.eiu.edu (Carlos Dragonslayer Butler)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Memory cube
Message-ID: <1991May01.184830.12997@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 18:48:30 GMT
Organization: Eastern Illinois University
Lines: 53


	Peep this yall:

Reprinted without permission from the Chicago Sun-Times

		'Memory cube' magnifies computer power
			by Lee Siegel
		    Associated Press

	Los Angeles-Scientist have developed a 3-D computer memory system
they say could store the contents of 400,000 books or 3,000 personal computers
on a piece of plastic smaller than a sugar cube.
	Peter Rentzepis, a chemistry professor at the University of California,
Irvine, announced the Pentagon-financed development of a prototype "memory 
cube" when he spoke Tuesday at the Materials Research Society's spring meeting
in Anaheim.
	So far, researchers have used laser beams to store only 1000 bits...
inside the prototype. But the memory cube ultimately could store 1 trillion
bits of data, Rentzepis said in an interview. However, years of work are
required to improve the new memory system so it can be commercially available
in computers, he added.
	If researchers are successful, the cheap, lightweight and super-
compact memory cube could vastly increase the capabilities of personal
computers and allow much more sophisticated computers on military planes and
weapon systems, Rentzepis said.
	"It will be a fundamental breakthrough if this works and can be
commercialized," said Marc Nussbaum, chief of technology at Western Digital,
....
	[stuff about current storage HD -- 3,000 PC figure is based on 40 mg
HDs]
	[stuff about bits, bytes, and actual text]

	The prototype memory device is a polymer plastic cube. A material 
that chemically reacts to laser light is uniformly dispersed throughout the
cube.
	To store data in the cube, a laser beam is split in 2 parts, which
enter the cube from different directions. At the point where the 2 beams
intersect, the light is absorbed, changing the material at that point in 
the cube from clear to blue. One blue spot or one clear spot each
corresponds to 1 bit of information.
	To make the memory cube live up to its potential, scientist must
find a way to prevent the data from erasing itself at room temperature, as
it does now, Rentzepis said.
	The cube was developed with a $1.4 million grant from the Air Force
laboratory in Rome, N.Y., and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Comments anyone?

-- 
 Carlos Dragonslayer Butler|       "People often condescend          
   bucacs@ux1.ctseiu.edu   |     what they fail to comprehend.       
       Lord of House       |      Ignorance makes life easier.       
                           |  Peace, knowledge, love and happiness."