Nanowire nanomemory

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/04/23/nanowire_nanomemory.html

This image depicts a novel design for a nanomemory device that its inventors believe can store 40 gigabits of data per square centimeter. Developed by scientists at the University of Southern California and the NASA Ames Research Center, the self-assembled molecular memory consists of a nanowire coated with a layer of transistors. In traditional computer memory chips, each transistor holds one bit of information. The beauty of this nano-enabled approach is that the transistors can be put in eight distinct states depending on the voltage applied. That means each "memory cell" can hold three bits of data. Link

Sweet! Molecular memory. Maybe we are in the 21st century after all!

The image above is borrowed from Russ Lipton's Coffeehouse at the End-Of-Days blog entry on this same subject