Times of India
IBM claims atom breakthrough
AGENCIES, Sep 24, 2010, 05.49pm IST
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SAN FRANCISCO: International Business Machines Corp. is developing a
process that may pack more music on _Apple_
(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Apple) Inc's iPod Nanos or
make solar panels more efficient.
_IBM_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/IBM) scientists are
unveiling today a technique for observing atomic reactions in real-time. It may
help manufacturers make smaller devices with greater memory, Spike Narayan,
an IBM researcher, said in a phone interview.
"It's easy to make things on a small scale, but to understand how things
behave going down to the smaller scale, that's really what's needed," said
Narayan, who manages science and technology at IBM's Almaden Research Center
in _San Jose_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/San-Jose) ,
California.
IBM, the world's largest computer-services provider, invested about $6
billion, or about 6 percent of its sales, in research projects last year. The
company is aiming to design more efficient methods to process and store
information as customers demand more computing power.
The technique may enable manufacturers to make hard-drives that hold 1,000
times more data than now, said Rob Enderle, a principal analyst at Enderle
Group. One version of the iPhone 4, Apple's newest model with features
including video calls, Web surfing and a music player, has a capacity of 32
gigabytes.
"Think of iPhones that, instead of having gigabytes, have terabytes --
that's what this could mean," Enderle said. One terabyte is equivalent to about
1,000 gigabytes. "It allows them to put vastly more data in a vastly
smaller space," the San Jose-based analyst said.
_Atom_ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Atom) magnetism
Using a special microscope that images atoms, scientists moved an atom
with voltage and measured its magnetism at various points, observing how it
acted at a speed 1 million times faster than has been possible. The study
enabled them to time how long an atom can hold 1 byte of data. For an iron atom
on a copper surface, it was 200 nanoseconds, comparable to typical dynamic
random access memory, which is used in personal computers, Narayan said.
Now scientists may use the technique to see how certain combinations hold
data, and how few atoms are needed for various functions.
Observing atom's reactions in real-time also has implications outside the
storage industry, Narayan said. Scientists could manipulate how atoms react
to light, helping make solar panels more efficient, he said. The technique
could help study how atoms in bodies consume energy, he said.
IBM, based in Armonk, New York, makes about $1 billion a year in licensing
revenue, according to regulatory filings.
This month, IBM Chief Executive Officer Sam Palmisano criticized rival
Hewlett Packard Co. for cutting investments in research and development,
saying it forces them to pay more for acquisitions. HP agreed to pay $2.35
billion this month for data-storage maker 3Par, after a bidding contest with
Dell Inc.
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