Category Archives: MEMS

Wearable devices are increasingly bought to track and measure health and sports performance: from the number of steps walked each day to a person’s metabolic efficiency, from the quality of brain function to the quantity of oxygen inhaled while asleep. But the truth is we know very little about how well these sensors and machines work — let alone whether they deliver useful information, according to a new review published in Frontiers in Physiology.

“Despite the fact that we live in an era of ‘big data,’ we know surprisingly little about the suitability or effectiveness of these devices,” says lead author Dr Jonathan Peake of the School of Biomedical Sciences and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. “Only five percent of these devices have been formally validated.”

The authors reviewed information on devices used both by everyday people desiring to keep track of their physical and psychological health and by athletes training to achieve certain performance levels. The devices — ranging from so-called wrist trackers to smart garments and body sensors designed to track our body’s vital signs and responses to stress and environmental influences — fall into six categories:

  • devices for monitoring hydration status and metabolism
  • devices, garments and mobile applications for monitoring physical and psychological stress
  • wearable devices that provide physical biofeedback (e.g., muscle stimulation, haptic feedback)
  • devices that provide cognitive feedback and training
  • devices and applications for monitoring and promoting sleep
  • devices and applications for evaluating concussion

The authors investigated key issues, such as: what the technology claims to do; whether the technology has been independently validated against some recognized standards; whether the technology is reliable and what, if any, calibration is needed; and finally, whether the item is commercially available or still under development.

The authors say that technology developed for research purposes generally seems to be more credible than devices created purely for commercial reasons.

“What is critical to understand here is that while most of these technologies are not labeled as ‘medical devices’ per se, their very existence, let alone the accompanying marketing, conveys a sensibility that they can be used to measure a standard of health,” says Peake. “There are ethical issues with this assumption that need to be addressed.”

For example, self-diagnosis based on self-gathered data could be inconsistent with clinical analysis based on a medical professional’s assessment. And just as body mass index charts of the past really only provided general guidelines and didn’t take into account a person’s genetic predisposition or athletic build, today’s technology is similarly limited.

The authors are particularly concerned about those technologies that seek to confirm or correlate whether someone has sustained or recovered from a concussion, whether from sports or military service.

“We have to be very careful here because there is so much variability,” says Peake. “The technology could be quite useful, but it can’t and should never replace assessment by a trained medical professional.”

Speaking generally again now, Peake says it is important to establish whether using wearable devices affects people’s knowledge and attitude about their own health and whether paying such close attention to our bodies could in fact create a harmful obsession with personal health, either for individuals using the devices, or for family members. Still, self-monitoring may reveal undiagnosed health problems, said Peake, although population data is more likely to point to false positives.

“What we do know is that we need to start studying these devices and the trends they are creating,” says Peake. “This is a booming industry.”

In fact, a March 2018 study by P&S Market Research indicates the wearable market is expected to generate $48.2 billion in revenue by 2023. That’s a mere five years into the future.”

The authors highlight a number of areas for investigation in order to develop reasonable consumer policies around this growing industry. These include how rigorously the device/technology has been evaluated and the strength of evidence that the device/technology actually produces the desired outcomes.

“And I’ll add a final question: Is wearing a device that continuously tracks your body’s actions, your brain activity, and your metabolic function — then wirelessly transmits that data to either a cloud-based databank or some other storage — safe, for users? Will it help us improve our health?” asked Peake. “We need to ask these questions and research the answers.”

Xperi Corporation announced a partnership with global semiconductor foundry, UMC. This strategic partnership will enable the companies to support the growing demand for Invensas ZiBond and Invensas DBI 3D semiconductor technologies.

Together, Xperi and UMC will further optimize and commercialize the ZiBond and DBI technologies for a wide range of semiconductor devices including image sensors, radio frequency (RF), MEMS, display drivers, touch controllers, SoC, analog, power and mixed-signal devices. Wafer to wafer (W2W) and die to wafer (D2W) bonding and 3D interconnect implementations will be employed to address the requirements of a variety of applications within the mobile, consumer, automotive, communication, industrial and Internet of Things (IoT) industries.

“As a world-leading semiconductor foundry, we are committed to delivering leading-edge solutions to our customers,” said Wenchi Ting, vice president of specialty technologies at UMC. “By partnering with Xperi and the Invensas team, true pioneers in direct and hybrid bonding technologies, we continue to be well-positioned to meet our customers’ evolving requirements for advanced wafer bonding technologies.”

“We are excited to join forces with UMC, a premier global foundry engaged in every major sector of the electronics industry, to expand the production base for our ZiBond and DBI bonding and 3D interconnect platforms,” said Craig Mitchell, president, Invensas. “We look forward to working together to proliferate these enabling technologies into a wide range of high volume semiconductor applications.”

ZiBond is a low temperature homogenous direct bonding technology that forms strong bonds between semiconductor wafers or die with same or different coefficients of thermal expansion. This technology is used in image sensors, MEMS and various RF front-end devices.

DBI is a low temperature hybrid direct bonding technology that allows semiconductor wafers or die to be bonded with exceptionally fine pitch 3D electrical interconnect. This technology is suited for various semiconductor devices such as image sensors, DRAM, MEMS and RF devices.

Products employing these technologies are found in smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, televisions and gaming consoles, as well as in industrial, automotive and IoT electronic devices.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), a technology company that helps enterprises, service providers, and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced the Keysight MX0100A InfiniiMax micro probe head, the industry’s smallest solder-in probe head for high performance oscilloscopes, optimized for modern high-speed devices.

The size of electronic devices continues to shrink, resulting in smaller pads and narrower pitch spacing. Additionally, as data rates for applications such as DDR memory increase, conventional probing pads work as a stub, becoming a source for electromagnetic interference (EMI). As a result, customers are actively seeking high density, small geometry solutions for probing modern electronic technologies to analyze and measure signals without interference.

Keysight’s new InfiniiMax micro probe head is a micro solder-in head for use with the company’s InfiniiMax I/II probe amplifiers and is designed to access small geometry target devices. The lead wires can be adjusted to accommodate targets from 0 mm to 7 mm apart. When used in conjunction with Keysight’s 1169B 12 GHz InfiniiMax II probe amplifier, the MX0100A delivers up to full 12 GHz bandwidth. Offering the best probe loading performance in its class (0.17 pF, 50 kΩ differentially), the extremely low input capacitance of the MX0100A minimizes the probe loading effect and maximizes signal integrity when measuring high-speed signals.

“Existing oscilloscope probe head solutions available today are even larger than the devices being tested in some cases. This makes signal probing access a continual challenge for modern electronic technologies,” said Dave Cipriani, Vice President of the Digital and Photonics Center of Excellence at Keysight Technologies. “Unlike conventional solder-in probe heads in this class, Keysight specifically designed this micro probe to be less than half the size of existing solder-in probe heads for high density, fine pitch devices. It is the first, and only, of its kind on the market today.”

A new way of arranging advanced computer components called memristors on a chip could enable them to be used for general computing, which could cut energy consumption by a factor of 100.

This would improve performance in low power environments such as smartphones or make for more efficient supercomputers, says a University of Michigan researcher.

This is the memristor array situated on a circuit board. Credit: Mohammed Zidan, Nanoelectronics group, University of Michigan.

“Historically, the semiconductor industry has improved performance by making devices faster. But although the processors and memories are very fast, they can’t be efficient because they have to wait for data to come in and out,” said Wei Lu, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-founder of memristor startup Crossbar Inc.

Memristors might be the answer. Named as a portmanteau of memory and resistor, they can be programmed to have different resistance states–meaning they store information as resistance levels. These circuit elements enable memory and processing in the same device, cutting out the data transfer bottleneck experienced by conventional computers in which the memory is separate from the processor.

However, unlike ordinary bits, which are 1 or 0, memristors can have resistances that are on a continuum. Some applications, such as computing that mimics the brain (neuromorphic), take advantage of the analog nature of memristors. But for ordinary computing, trying to differentiate among small variations in the current passing through a memristor device is not precise enough for numerical calculations.

Lu and his colleagues got around this problem by digitizing the current outputs–defining current ranges as specific bit values (i.e., 0 or 1). The team was also able to map large mathematical problems into smaller blocks within the array, improving the efficiency and flexibility of the system.

Computers with these new blocks, which the researchers call “memory-processing units,” could be particularly useful for implementing machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. They are also well suited to tasks that are based on matrix operations, such as simulations used for weather prediction. The simplest mathematical matrices, akin to tables with rows and columns of numbers, can map directly onto the grid of memristors.

Once the memristors are set to represent the numbers, operations that multiply and sum the rows and columns can be taken care of simultaneously, with a set of voltage pulses along the rows. The current measured at the end of each column contains the answers. A typical processor, in contrast, would have to read the value from each cell of the matrix, perform multiplication, and then sum up each column in series.

“We get the multiplication and addition in one step. It’s taken care of through physical laws. We don’t need to manually multiply and sum in a processor,” Lu said.

His team chose to solve partial differential equations as a test for a 32×32 memristor array–which Lu imagines as just one block of a future system. These equations, including those behind weather forecasting, underpin many problems science and engineering but are very challenging to solve. The difficulty comes from the complicated forms and multiple variables needed to model physical phenomena.

When solving partial differential equations exactly is impossible, solving them approximately can require supercomputers. These problems often involve very large matrices of data, so the memory-processor communication bottleneck is neatly solved with a memristor array. The equations Lu’s team used in their demonstration simulated a plasma reactor, such as those used for integrated circuit fabrication.

Imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, announces that Niels Verellen, one of its young scientists, has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. The grant of 1.5 million euros (for 5 years) will be used to enable high-resolution, fast, robust, zero-maintenance, inexpensive and ultra-compact microscopy technology based on on-chip photonics and CMOS image sensors. The technology paves the way for multiple applications of cell imaging in life sciences, biology, and medicine and compact, cost-effective DNA sequencing instruments.

Microscopy is an indispensable tool in biology and medicine that has fueled many breakthroughs. Recently the world of microscopy has witnessed a true revolution in terms of increased resolution of fluorescent imaging techniques, including a Nobel Prize in 2014. Yet, these techniques remain largely locked-up in specialized laboratories as they require bulky, expensive instrumentation and highly skilled operators.

The next big push in microscopy with a large societal impact will come from extremely compact and robust optical systems that will make high-resolution microscopy highly accessible and as such facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of diseases or disorders caused by problems at the cell or molecular level, such as meningitis, malaria, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. Moreover, it will pave the way to DNA analysis as a more standard procedure, not only for the diagnosis of genomic disorders or in forensics, but also in cancer treatment, follow-up of transplants, the microbiome, pre-natal tests, and even agriculture, and archeology.

Niels Verellen, Senior Photonics Researcher & project leader at imec: “Compact, high-resolution and high-throughput microscopy devices will induce a profound change in the way cell biologists do research, in the way DNA sequencing becomes more and more accessible, in the way certain diseases can be diagnosed, new drugs are screened in the pharma industry, and healthcare workers can diagnose patients in remote areas.”

The topic of Verellen’s ERC grant is the development of Integrated high-Resolution On-Chip Structured Illumination Microscopy (IROCSIM). This new technology is based on a novel imaging platform that integrates active on-chip photonics and CMOS image sensors. “Whereas existing microscopy techniques today suffer from a trade-off between equipment size, field-of-view, and resolution, the IROCSIM solution will eliminate the need for bulky optical components and enable microscopy in the smallest possible form-factor, with a scalable field-of-view and without compromising the resolution,” continues Verellen.

The European Research Council (ERC) is a pan European funding body designed to support investigator-driven frontier research and stimulate scientific excellence across Europe. The ERC aims to support the best and most creative scientists to identify and explore new opportunities and directions in any field of research. ERC Starting grants in particular are designed to support outstanding researchers with 2 to 7 years postdoctoral experience.

Jo De Boeck, imec’s CTO says: “We are very proud that young researchers such as Niels Verellen are awarded an ERC Starting Grant and as such get a unique opportunity to fulfill their ambitions and creative ideas in research. At imec, we select and foster our young scientists and provide them with a world-class infrastructure. These ERC Starting Grants show that their work indeed meets the highest standards.”

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made a silicon chip that distributes optical signals precisely across a miniature brain-like grid, showcasing a potential new design for neural networks.

NIST’s grid-on-a-chip distributes light signals precisely, showcasing a potential new design for neural networks. The three-dimensional structure enables complex routing scheme, which are necessary to mimic the brain. Light could travel farther and faster than electrical signals. Credit: Chiles/NIST

The human brain has billions of neurons (nerve cells), each with thousands of connections to other neurons. Many computing research projects aim to emulate the brain by creating circuits of artificial neural networks. But conventional electronics, including the electrical wiring of semiconductor circuits, often impedes the extremely complex routing required for useful neural networks.

The NIST team proposes to use light instead of electricity as a signaling medium. Neural networks already have demonstrated remarkable power in solving complex problems, including rapid pattern recognition and data analysis. The use of light would eliminate interference due to electrical charge and the signals would travel faster and farther.

“Light’s advantages could improve the performance of neural nets for scientific data analysis such as searches for Earth-like planets and quantum information science, and accelerate the development of highly intuitive control systems for autonomous vehicles,” NIST physicist Jeff Chiles said.

A conventional computer processes information through algorithms, or human-coded rules. By contrast, a neural network relies on a network of connections among processing elements, or neurons, which can be trained to recognize certain patterns of stimuli. A neural or neuromorphic computer would consist of a large, complex system of neural networks.

Described in a new paper, the NIST chip overcomes a major challenge to the use of light signals by vertically stacking two layers of photonic waveguides–structures that confine light into narrow lines for routing optical signals, much as wires route electrical signals. This three-dimensional (3D) design enables complex routing schemes, which are necessary to mimic neural systems. Furthermore, this design can easily be extended to incorporate additional waveguiding layers when needed for more complex networks.

The stacked waveguides form a three-dimensional grid with 10 inputs or “upstream” neurons each connecting to 10 outputs or “downstream” neurons, for a total of 100 receivers. Fabricated on a silicon wafer, the waveguides are made of silicon nitride and are each 800 nanometers (nm) wide and 400 nm thick. Researchers created software to automatically generate signal routing, with adjustable levels of connectivity between the neurons.

Laser light was directed into the chip through an optical fiber. The goal was to route each input to every output group, following a selected distribution pattern for light intensity or power. Power levels represent the pattern and degree of connectivity in the circuit. The authors demonstrated two schemes for controlling output intensity: uniform (each output receives the same power) and a “bell curve” distribution (in which middle neurons receive the most power, while peripheral neurons receive less).

To evaluate the results, researchers made images of the output signals. All signals were focused through a microscope lens onto a semiconductor sensor and processed into image frames. This method allows many devices to be analyzed at the same time with high precision. The output was highly uniform, with low error rates, confirming precise power distribution.

“We’ve really done two things here,” Chiles said. “We’ve begun to use the third dimension to enable more optical connectivity, and we’ve developed a new measurement technique to rapidly characterize many devices in a photonic system. Both advances are crucial as we begin to scale up to massive optoelectronic neural systems.”

In a key move to inspire the next generation of innovators, the School District of Osceola County (SDOC) today became the first school district to join the SEMI High Tech U (HTU) Certified Partner Program (CPP), a curriculum that prepares high-school students to pursue careers in STEM fields.

Under the program sponsored by the SEMI Foundation, SDOC will independently deliver HTU programs to local students at the Osceola Technical College Campus, in Kissimmee, Florida. SEMI Foundation awarded SDOC the certification today at a graduation ceremony for HTU students.

“SDOC’s partnership with the SEMI Foundation gives young people and families in our community exposure to high-tech career opportunities and the educational pathways to reach their goals,” said Debra Pace, superintendent of School District of Osceola County. “Our industry partners – including Mercury, University of Central Florida, BRIDG, Osceola Technical College, imec, Neo City and the Osceola County Education Foundation – have all made it possible for SDOC to offer this amazing opportunity to students.”

“We are delighted to partner with SDOC in our common goal to motivate the next generation of innovators,” said Leslie Tugman, executive director of the SEMI Foundation. “The School District of Osceola County is well-positioned to put college-bound high school students on a track that speeds the time from graduation to employment in high technology. SDOC’s certification is a tremendous benefit for it students, the community and employers in the fast-growing Central Florida tech corridor.”

To win the certification, SDOC delivered HTU over the past three years with guidance and instruction from SEMI. SDOC is only the second organization to receive the certification.

The nonprofit SEMI Foundation has been delivering its flagship program, SEMI High Tech U, at industry sites around the world since 2001 to emphasize the importance of STEM skills and inspire young people to pursue careers in high-technology fields. HTU students meet engineers and STEM volunteer instructors from industry for site tours and hands-on classroom activities such as etching wafers, making circuits, coding and training for professional interviews.

SEMI’s Certified Partner Program identifies organizations that provide quality training and can recruit and educate local high-school students in the value of careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Participating organizations are trained to deliver the unique SEMI curriculum with the support of volunteer instructors from the high-tech and STEM industries. SEMI High Tech U is the longest-running STEM career exploration program in the United States with documented student impact. Since inception, SEMI has reached over 8,000 high-school students in 12 states and nine countries with its award-winning program.

SEMI Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization founded in 2001 to support education and career awareness in the electronics and high-tech fields through career exploration programs and scholarships. For more information, visit www.semifoundation.org.

Researchers have shown that a chip-based device measuring a millimeter square could be used to generate quantum-based random numbers at gigabit per second speeds. The tiny device requires little power and could enable stand-alone random number generators or be incorporated into laptops and smart phones to offer real-time encryption.

Researchers created a chip-based device measuring a millimeter square that can potentially generate quantum-based random numbers at gigabit per second speeds. The small square to the right of the penny contains all the optical components of the random number generator. Credit: Francesco Raffaelli, University of Bristol

“While part of the control electronics is not integrated yet, the device we designed integrates all the required optical components on one chip,” said first author Francesco Raffaelli, University of Bristol, United Kingdom. “Using this device by itself or integrating it into other portable devices would be very useful in the future to make our information more secure and to better protect our privacy.”

Random number generators are used to encrypt data transmitted during digital transactions such as buying products online or sending a secure e-mail. Today’s random number generators are based on computer algorithms, which can leave data vulnerable if hackers figure out the algorithm used.

In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Express, the researchers report a quantum random number generator based on randomly emitted photons from a diode laser. Because the photon emission is inherently random, it is impossible to predict the numbers that will be generated.

“Compared to other integrated quantum random number generators demonstrated recently, ours can accomplish very high generation rates with relatively low optical powers,” said Raffaelli. “Using less power to produce random numbers helps avoid problems such as excess heat on the chip.”

Silicon photonics

The new chip was enabled by developments in silicon photonics technology, which uses the same semiconductor fabrication techniques used to make computer chips to fabricate optical components in silicon. It is now possible to fabricate waveguides into silicon that can guide light through the chip without losing the light energy along the way. These waveguides can be integrated onto a chip with electronics and integrated detectors that operate at very high speeds to convert the light signals into information.

The new chip-based random number generator takes advantage of the fact that under certain conditions a laser will emit photons randomly. The device converts these photons into optical power using a tiny device called an interferometer. Very small photodetectors integrated into the same chip then detect the optical power and convert it into a voltage that can be turned into random numbers.

“Despite the advancements in silicon photonics, there is still light lost inside the chip, which leads to very little light reaching the detectors,” said Raffaelli. “This required us to optimize all the parameters very precisely and design low noise electronics to detect the optical signal inside the chip.”

The new chip-based device not only brings portability advantages but is also more stable than the same device made using bulk optics. This is because interferometers are very sensitive to environmental conditions such as temperature and it is easier to control the temperature of a small chip. It is also far easier to precisely reproduce thousands of identical chips using semiconductor fabrication, whereas reproducing the necessary precision with bulk optics is more difficult.

Testing the chip

To experimentally test their design, the researchers had a foundry fabricate the random number generator chip. After characterizing the optical and electronic performance, they used it for random number generation. They estimate a potential randomness generation rate of nearly 2.8 gigabits per second for their device, which would be fast enough to enable real-time encryption.

“We demonstrated random number generation using about a tenth of the power used in other chip-based quantum random number generator devices,” said Raffaelli. “Our work shows the feasibility of this type of integrated platform.”

Although the chip containing the optical components is only one millimeter square, the researchers used an external laser which provides the source of randomness and electronics and measurement tools that required an optical table. They are now working to create a portable device about the size of a mobile phone that contains both the chip and the necessary electronics.

Park Systems announced the opening of the Park Nanoscience Lab at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore India, which has been upgraded to the status of Institute of Eminence.

The Nanoscience Lab will be equipped with Park NX20 AFM at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) and will hold workshops and symposiums on the latest advancements in nanometrology and offer researchers a chance to experience the latest in AFM technology.

The official inauguration ceremony of the Park Nanoscience Lab in India will be held on Wednesday July 25, 2018 at 10 AM featuring a talk by Dr. San Joon Cho of Park Systems Corporation,who will make an official presentation, declaring the Park NanoScience Lab, a national facility where researchers will have access to Park Systems cutting-edge Atomic Force Microscopes with high resolution nanoscale imaging.The event will also include an AFM live demonstration and is open to the press and public. To register to attend go to: http://www.parksystems.com/iisc

“We are honored to have the Park Nanoscience Lab here at Indian Institute of Science,” The Director, CeNSE- Indian Institute of Science further added, “The partnership with Park Systems and their Atomic Force Microscope technology strengthens our academic and scientific community by bringing an exciting new research tool to a shared access location, supporting the growing demand for nanotechnology here in India.”

The Park Nanoscience Labwill showcase advanced atomic force microscopy systems, demonstrate a wide variety of applications ranging from materials, to chemical and biological to semiconductor and devices, and provide hands on experience, training and service, year-round.

“Increasingly, AFM is being selected for Nanotechnology research over other metrology techniques due to its non-destructive measurement and sub-nanometer accuracy,” states Dr. Sang-il Park, Park Systems Chairman and CEO. “The new Park Nanoscience Lab at Indian Institute is a tremendous step forward for researchers in India who work in the advancing fields of nano science and technology.”

Park Systems advanced AFM platform includes SmartScan, an innovative and pioneering AFM intelligence that produces high quality imaging with very few clicks. Park SmartScan’s unique design opens up the power of AFM to everyone and drastically boosts the productivity of all users.

Since going public and listing on KOSDAQ in 2016, Park Systems’ stock has quadrupled as they continue to lead the world in growing AFM market share. Park Systems, a global AFM manufacturer, has Nanoscience Centers in key cities world-wide including Santa Clara, CA, Albany NY, Tokyo, Japan, Singapore, Heidelberg, Germany, Suwon and Seoul.

Scientists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have created the most dense, solid-state memory in history that could soon exceed the capabilities of current hard drives by 1,000 times.

Faced with the question of how to respond to the ever-increasing needs of our data-driven society, the answer for a team of scientists was simple: more memory, less space. Finding the way to do that, however, was anything but simple, involving years of painstaking incremental advances in atomic-scale nanotechnology.

But their new discovery for atomic-scale rewritable memory–quickly removing or replacing single atoms–allows the creation of small, stable, dense memory at the atomic-scale.

To demonstrate the new discovery, Achal, Wolkow, and their fellow scientists not only fabricated the world’s smallest maple leaf, they also encoded the entire alphabet at a density of 138 terabytes, roughly equivalent to writing 350,000 letters across a grain of rice. For a playful twist, Achal also encoded music as an atom-sized song, the first 24 notes of which will make any video-game player of the 80s and 90s nostalgic for yesteryear but excited for the future of technology and society. Credit: Roshan Achal / courtesy Nature Communications

“Essentially, you can take all 45 million songs on iTunes and store them on the surface of one quarter,” said Roshan Achal, PhD student in Department of Physics at the University of Alberta and lead author on the new research. “Five years ago, this wasn’t even something we thought possible.”

Previous discoveries were stable only at cryogenic conditions, meaning this new finding puts society light years closer to meeting the need for more storage for the current and continued deluge of data. One of the most exciting features of this memory is that it’s road-ready for real-world temperatures, as it can withstand normal use and transportation beyond the lab.

“What is often overlooked in the nanofabrication business is actual transportation to an end user, that simply was not possible until now given temperature restrictions,” continued Achal. “Our memory is stable well above room temperature and precise down to the atom.”

Achal explained that immediate applications will be data archival. Next steps will be increasing readout and writing speeds, meaning even more flexible applications.

More memory, less space

Achal works with University of Alberta physics professor Robert Wolkow, a pioneer in the field of atomic-scale physics. Wolkow perfected the art of the science behind nanotip technology, which, thanks to Wolkow and his team’s continued work, has now reached a tipping point, meaning scaling up atomic-scale manufacturing for commercialization.

“With this last piece of the puzzle now in-hand, atom-scale fabrication will become a commercial reality in the very near future,” said Wolkow. Wolkow’s Spin-off company, Quantum Silicon Inc., is hard at work on commercializing atom-scale fabrication for use in all areas of the technology sector.

To demonstrate the new discovery, Achal, Wolkow, and their fellow scientists not only fabricated the world’s smallest maple leaf, they also encoded the entire alphabet at a density of 138 terabytes, roughly equivalent to writing 350,000 letters across a grain of rice. For a playful twist, Achal also encoded music as an atom-sized song, the first 24 notes of which will make any video-game player of the 80s and 90s nostalgic for yesteryear but excited for the future of technology and society.