Millipede is a non-volatile computer memory stored on nanoscopic pits burned into the surface of a thin polymer layer, read and written by a MEMS-based probe. It promises a data density of more than 1 terabit per square inch (1 gigabit per square millimeter), which is about the limit of the perpendicular recording hard drives.
Millipede storage technology is being pursued as a potential replacement for magnetic recording in hard drives, at the same time reducing the form-factor to that of flash media. IBM demonstrated a prototype millipede storage device at CeBIT 2005, and was trying to make the technology commercially available by the end of 2007. At launch, it would probably be more expensive per-megabyte than prevailing technologies, but this disadvantage is hoped to be offset by the sheer storage capacity that Millipede technology would offer.
Famous quotes containing the word memory:
“I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)