Will metal-bonding method be the boon for MRAMs?

[Bartram]

Sandia National Labs says it has perfected a method using water vapor to successfully bond metal to insulators. The problem with magnetic random-access memories (as opposed to RAM memory you hear so much about now days) has been scaling them to smaller sizes with lower drive current and thinner metallization to better compete with RAM technology that dominates the PC/commercial industry today. Apparantly adding water vapor (water vapor? can you belive this? something this simple? you have got to be kidding me here folks.) to the metal deposition process produces less atomic layers of metal to make it crystalline (magnetic) producing smaller devices as opposed to older methods which required larger devices that could not compete with the smaller sized RAM technologies.

I would like to know if North Carolina A&T or any other HBCUs are doing research in this area? There was extensive research into the general field of silicon chip fabrication (what with Research Triangle Park just 90 miles up the interstate. this is why I pound relentlessly on the importance of economic development and bringing high-tech companies, industry to a state,, this and universities are like the chicken and the egg,, and they form a synergy of perpetual higher education, economic prosperity and job creation for a metro/region/state,, but lest I digress into an economic development diatribe to anyone who will listen,, :winkgrin: ) going on at A&T in the early 90s while I was there. Does anyone know what's going on now?

 

[BachMegatone]

Nice subject!

I think the push to get the research at the HBCU's is largely on the shoulders of us in the industry now. I think we're in a pretty decent position to at least bring it to the table of the people that can get the ball rolling. If at the very least we're the networking point between the schools and the businesses.

 

[Bartram]

Nice subject!

I think the push to get the research at the HBCU's is largely on the shoulders of us in the industry now. I think we're in a pretty decent position to at least bring it to the table of the people that can get the ball rolling. If at the very least we're the networking point between the schools and the businesses.

Good point. You right, it's up to us in the industry. We have to partner with instructors (or our classmates who went back to become instructors) to bring more research to HBCUs. Those who go back and teach are crucial. They can bring millions in research to HBCUs and form alliances with industry to facilitate employment of HBCU grads who have, for example, done work in leading edge technologies. In my state, the PWCs have a built-in perpetual monopoly. Most of the business and industry leaders graduated from the two primary PWCs, and most of the business and industry higher graduates from those PWCs while HBCU grads (at least in techincal fields) find jobs largely outside of the state (with Huntsville being an exception.).