Brewer Science upgrades production for CNT memory devices
Lithography innovator Brewer Science has installed a scale-up reactor to increase production of its CNTRENE C100 family of electronics-grade carbon nanotube (CNT) materials by tenfold.
Such materials are used in chemical and biological sensors and nanotube-based non-volatile random access memory (RAM) device applications, which require extremely low levels of metal ion contaminants with concentration limits in parts per billion.
CNT technology is developing at a rapid rate and is quickly becoming a worthy rival to silicon in memory applications.
"Small-scale reaction equipment can only take manufacturing so far with respect to quality and delivery time. This new scale-up reactor will provide the capability to complete weeks of reactions in three days while producing materials that meet stringent microelectronics specifications," says Stephen Gibbons, Director of Technology of Brewer Science's Carbon Electronics Centre.
Jim Lamb, Director of Business Development for the Carbon Electronics Centre adds, "˜'With increasing customer usage and the move toward commercial adoption in devices, we needed to implement our third round of scale-up to support market demand. Growth of our CNTRENE C100 family of products is driven by their use in nanotube-based non-volatile random access memory devices, a universal CNT memory structure developed by Nantero, Inc., sold under the name NRAM, which could replace embedded memory, DRAM, SRAM, and flash memory devices."
"This structure allows flexible placement of memory in the device stack and can be stacked for vertically placed memory cells. NRAM devices provide other key benefits including robustness, 3-nanosecond write speeds, low operating power, radiation-hardened memory cells, and the ability to perform at high operating temperatures," continues Lamb.
Jim Lamb from Brewer Science will be presenting at the upcoming Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC). He will talkabout "Carbon Nanotubes Solutions for Packaging and Wireless Sensors" (presentation IS2.4.3) on Thursday, March 21st, at the industry session on Nanotechnology Applications in Power Electronics.
