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STRATEGIC Elements has announced the performance results of its Nanocube memory ink, claiming the technology is one the world's leading printable memory technologies.
Nanocube technology was licensed from UNSW, and a team from the university has been contracted to assist with the development of the technology.
The researchers fabricated a prototype with Nanocube memory ink on silicon substrates. Using this prototype, the company achieved data writing speeds over 1000 times faster than today’s state-of-the-art flash memory technology used in most wearable devices and smartphones.
According to Strategic Elements, the faster data writing speed allows a device to run more complex applications.
The tests found that the memory ink required up to 40 percent less voltage than existing memory technologies. This could potentially extend the running life of low power devices, such as wearables.
The researchers also tested a prototype, where Nanocube memory ink was printed on flexible and transparent plastic. They found the flexible and transparent variant achieved data writing speeds up to 10 times faster, using up to 3 times less voltage than today's leading commercialised flexible plastic memory.
Strategic Elements says printed electronics is becoming a multi-billion dollar global market. However, there is currently no commercialised, high performance printed memory technology, even though memory is at the heart of creating products with more complex functions and applications.
According to Strategic Elements, the Nanocube memory ink, with its high performance characteristics, could be a disruptive technology. This is also thanks in part to the technology enabling the incorporating of high performance printable memory into existing products for the first time across many industries/
In the next steps, the company will test the Nanocube memory ink on glass substrates, for possible us in the infrastructure sensor. It will also investigate if different materials from large companies such as Kodak (flexible plastics), Dupont (conductive inks) and Corning (glass) can be used to enhance the performance of the memory ink even further.
The nanocube ink is made from cerium oxide and is comprised of billions of tiny cubes that are roughly 10 nanometres thick, or about 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper. When placed in a solution and deposited onto a conductive surface, the cubes self-assemble; first, they form a coordinated square array, then they stack on top of each other like Lego, building up layer by layer.
Digital information (a series of ones and zeroes) is encoded and stored on the nanocube memory cells by applying an electrical current, which changes the cell between a resistive and conductive state.