Fabrication Trick Offers Fivefold Leap in Hard-Disk Capacity

technologyreview.com

25 pointsredDragon6 comments

What about read-write times?

At some stage, storage density is not per-se the only issue. Speed, energy efficiency, error rates etc. are now to the fore in alot of places.

Doesn't read-write on a hard drive generally scale with linear density? Twice as fast to read, half as fast to read the entire disk.

All things being equal. But that's the question -- is there something we are missing?

I was surprised this would not be mentioned as a feature, for example, if it were true. But there is only this remark at the end:

“One challenge is to achieve long-range order using copolymers without defects over large areas,” he says. With millions of data-storing dots on a disk’s platter, error rates must be very low to avoid significant numbers of them being positioned incorrectly.

Can this also be applied to CPU assembly?

I doubt it. The article makes this sound pretty specific to producing the magnetic disks used in hard drives. I don't see any reason why this would also work for silicon processes.

Probably not the same exact technique, but some people are researching self-assembly for post-silicon transistors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com