A brand new silver ooze that claims a better use of space.
Flash devices, whether incredibly high performing or simply intended for mass storage, are irrefutably the way of the future.
The only problem you start running into is size; specifically being able to fit enough flash chips in a small space before running out of room.
Looking at the way that flash chips are used currently, they're assembled as a single layer attached directly to a PCB, flattened out into rows that use a lot of horizontal space, but very little vertically.
Bill Watkins (ex-CEO of Seagate) thinks that it's rather silly to leave all that space go to waste, so working with his new employer Vertical Circuits he's helped them bring this to fruition.
What is essentially a silver-based sludge that is inserted between two memory chips vertically, this enables a communication path between the two that allows the entire stack of chips to communicate with each other as well as directly to the PCB.
The New York Times describes it as this:
Vertical Circuits has developed a patented ooze that it uses to create electrical connections between chips. It dribbles this silver-based epoxy over the chips, reducing the need for wires or clunky packages that group chips together. When seen under the microscope, the goo covering the chips is reminiscent of lava coating terraced farms on a hillside.
It's an interesting new tech, and is a novel way for enhancing flash storage density - but will the flash manufacturers get their densities high enough not to bother with the ooze?
Head over to the full article for a bit of a squiz into the tech, and keep your eyes peeled for this silver sludge appearing in MP3 players and netbooks in the very near future.
Issue: 111 | April, 2010