New chip reportedly holds all of British Library

From...

by Laura Rohde

(IDG) -- A professor at Keele University in Staffordshire, England, claims to have invented a memory chip that can hold enough information to fit the entire contents of the British Library onto a single chip.

Ted Williams, emeritus professor of electronic engineering, has patented a solid state memory system with a capacity of 86GB per square centimeter of surface area, says Mike Downey, managing director of Cavendish Management Resources, the company that has been contracted to handle all commercial aspects of the technology.

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"It uses a magneto-optical system which is similar to the CD-ROM and can be used as computer and processor memory for credit cards and smart cards, among other things. There is enough capacity to fit 3.4TB of memory within the surface area of a credit card," Downey says.

The cost of producing the chip is estimated to be less than $43.60 per unit with the physical size (if the chip uses the computer's processor) measuring 3 centimeters by 3 centimeters, with a height of 1.5 centimeters.

According to Downey, Williams and his team have invented four technologies to increase the capacity of computer memory. One patent has already been granted for the technology that compresses text stored in binary form, and patent applications have been filed for other parts of the system, Downey says.

He estimates that the chip could be made ready for the market within two years. Though partners are being sought, Downey declines to name any companies that have expressed an interest in the memory system.

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Keele University
Cavendish Management Resources

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