August 9, 2006 – JMAR Technologies Inc., San Diego, CA, has received a $3.1 million award from the US Naval Air Systems Command, to be added to the company’s current $17.5 million contract with NAVAIR to continue development of sub-100nm feature x-ray masks and next generation nanolithography.
Under the deal, JMAR will develop x-ray masks for fabricating high-speed chalcogenide random-access memory (C-RAM) with 35-50nm features, enabling 16MB and higher densities, for use in military and space applications. The work, based on the company’s x-ray stepper and point source technologies, is part of a joint Navy/Air Force development effort to produce radiation-hardened, low-power silicon memory devices.
The technology is also seen to have commercial applications, as a faster, lower power replacement for nonvolatile memory — such as flash memory in cell phones, computers, and solid-state hard disks.