Imperial: brainy microchip could boost mobile phone memory

A microchip that mimics the function of the human brain could one day result in a mobile phone with the memory capacity of a desktop computer, researchers from Imperial College London, Durham University and the University of Sheffield wrote in a recent report in the journal Science.

While the researchers are not seeking additional private equity funding, they would welcome a large microchip partner to provide additional technology, money and commercialisation expertise.

The new computer chip design will allow large amounts of information to be stored in a small amount of space by using a complicated, interconnected network of nanowires. Those nanotechnology wires will be able to perform computing and make decisions at the junctions or nodes where they intersect. This is similar to the way the nerve cells in the brain and their hair-like extensions communicate with other brain cells.

Today's memory chips in mobile phones can store a limited amount of information, and many cannot accommodate the huge amount of information needed to create video images on the latest generation of phones. So far electronics companies have tried to super-miniaturise hard disk drives similar to those used in desktop computers and make them fit into cell phones, but it has been an expensive and difficult task.

The new microchip will be able to combine the storage capacity of a hard disk drive with the low cost of memory cards. That means mobile phone memory could be increased some 200 times – from about 500 megabytes now to 100 gigabytes in the future, the researchers claim.

"This technology has the potential to transform mobile phones into fully functioning video cameras, in addition to a range of other applications," said Russell Cowburn, lead researcher on the project and professor of nanotechnology in Imperial's department of physics.

Cowburn and his colleagues discovered that they could use nanotechnology to reproduce key functions of semiconductor electronics in microchips using physics. They use only the magnetic "spin" of electrons instead of the electrical charge that today's microchips use. The result is a new architecture for electronics that is in three dimensions instead of two dimensions. Cowburn compared the 2-D flat structure of conventional microchips to using tabletops rather than cupboards to store goods. The 3-D microchips would be able to store far more information than a flat 2-D surface.

The researchers are working with commercial partners to develop the technology and build a more advanced demonstration chip. To date, the project has received an unspecified amount of funding from a private equity investment firm and about €300,000 from the MAGLOG (magnetic logic) project. Cowburn said he is not seeking more equity funding. But the next step is to look for a technical partner in the global semiconductor industry to get money, transfer technology and produce a commercial product.