Tag Archives: Boise State University

Nucleic acid-based memory storage

We’re running out of memory. To be more specific, there are two problems: the supply of silicon and a limit to how much silicon-based memory can store. An April 27, 2016 news item on Nanowerk announces a nucleic acid-based approach to solving the memory problem,

A group of Boise State [Boise State University in Idaho, US] researchers, led by associate professor of materials science and engineering and associate dean of the College of Innovation and Design Will Hughes, is working toward a better way to store digital information using nucleic acid memory (NAM).

An April 25, 2016 Boise State University news release, which originated the news item, expands on the theme of computer memory and provides more details about the approach,

It’s no secret that as a society we generate vast amounts of data each year. So much so that the 30 billion watts of electricity used annually by server farms today is roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants.

And the demand keeps growing. The global flash memory market is predicted to reach $30.2 billion this year, potentially growing to $80.3 billion by 2025. Experts estimate that by 2040, the demand for global memory will exceed the projected supply of silicon (the raw material used to store flash memory). Furthermore, electronic memory is rapidly approaching its fundamental size limits because of the difficulty in storing electrons in small dimensions.

Hughes, with post-doctoral researcher Reza Zadegan and colleagues Victor Zhirnov (Semiconductor Research Corporation), Gurtej Sandhun (Micron Technology Inc.) and George Church (Harvard University), is looking to DNA molecules to solve the problem. Nucleic acid — the “NA” in “DNA” — far surpasses electronic memory in retention time, according to the researchers, while also providing greater information density and energy of operation.

Their conclusions are outlined in an invited commentary in the prestigious journal Nature Materials published earlier this month.

“DNA is the data storage material of life in general,” said Hughes. “Because of its physical and chemical properties, it also may become the data storage material of our lives.” It may sound like science fiction, but Hughes will participate in an invitation-only workshop this month at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Agency to envision a portable DNA hard drive that would have 500 Terabytes of searchable data – that’s about the the size of the Library of Congress Web Archive.

“When information bits are encoded into polymer strings, researchers and manufacturers can manage and manipulate physical, chemical and biological information with standard molecular biology techniques,” the paper [in Nature Materials?] states.

Cost-competitive technologies to read and write DNA could lead to real-world applications ranging from artificial chromosomes, digital hard drives and information-management systems, to a platform for watermarking and tracking genetic content or next-generation encryption tools that necessitate physical rather than electronic embodiment.

Here’s how it works. Current binary code uses 0’s and 1’s to represent bits of information. A computer program then accesses a specific decoder to turn the numbers back into usable data. With nucleic acid memory, 0’s and 1’s are replaced with the nucleotides A, T, C and G. Known as monomers, they are covalently bonded to form longer polymer chains, also known as information strings.

Because of DNA’s superior ability to store data, DNA can contain all the information in the world in a small box measuring 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters cubed. NAM could thus be used as a sustainable time capsule for massive, scientific, financial, governmental, historical, genealogical, personal and genetic records.

Better yet, DNA can store digital information for a very long time – thousands to millions of years. Currently, usable information has been extracted from DNA in bones that are 700,000 years old, making nucleic acid memory a promising archival material. And nucleic acid memory uses 100 million times less energy than storing data electronically in flash, and the data can live on for generations.

At Boise State, Hughes and Zadegan are examining DNA’s stability under extreme conditions. DNA strands are subjected to temperatures varying from negative 20 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius, and to a variety of UV exposures to see if they can still retain their information. What they’re finding is that much less information is lost with NAM than with the current state of the industry.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the Nature Materials paper,

Nucleic acid memory by Victor Zhirnov, Reza M. Zadegan, Gurtej S. Sandhu, George M. Church, & William L. Hughes. Nature Materials 15, 366–370 (2016)  doi:10.1038/nmat4594 Published online 23 March 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Knowm (sounds like gnome?) A memristor company with a commercially available product

German garden gnome Date: 11 August 2006 (original upload date) Source:Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons. Author: Colibri1968 at English Wikipedia

German garden gnome
Date 11 August 2006 (original upload date)
Source Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.
Author Colibri1968 at English Wikipedia

I thought the ‘gnome’knowm’ homonym or, more precisely, homophone, might be an amusing way to lead into yet another memristor story on this blog.  A Sept. 3, 2015 news item on Azonano features a ‘memristor-based’ company/organization, Knowm,

Knowm Inc., a start-up pioneering next-generation advanced computing architectures and technology, today announced they are the first to develop and make commercially-available memristors with bi-directional incremental learning capability.

The device was developed through research from Boise State University’s [Idaho, US] Dr. Kris Campbell, and this new data unequivocally confirms Knowm’s memristors are capable of bi-directional incremental learning. This has been previously deemed impossible in filamentary devices by Knowm’s competitors, including IBM [emphasis mine], despite significant investment in materials, research and development. With this advancement, Knowm delivers the first commercial memristors that can adjust resistance in incremental steps in both direction rather than only one direction with an all-or-nothing ‘erase’. This advancement opens the gateway to extremely efficient and powerful machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

A Sept. 2, 2015 Knowm news release (also on MarketWatch), which originated the news item, provides more details,

“Having commercially-available memristors with bi-directional voltage-dependent incremental capability is a huge step forward for the field of machine learning and, particularly, AHaH Computing,” said Alex Nugent, CEO and co-founder of Knowm. “We have been dreaming about this device and developing the theory for how to apply them to best maximize their potential for more than a decade, but the lack of capability confirmation had been holding us back. This data is truly a monumental technical milestone and it will serve as a springboard to catapult Knowm and AHaH Computing forward.”

Memristors with the bi-directional incremental resistance change property are the foundation for developing learning hardware such as Knowm Inc.’s recently announced Thermodynamic RAM (kT-RAM) and help realize the full potential of AHaH Computing. The availability of kT-RAM will have the largest impact in fields that require higher computational power for machine learning tasks like autonomous robotics, big-data analysis and intelligent Internet assistants. kT-RAM radically increases the efficiency of synaptic integration and adaptation operations by reducing them to physically adaptive ‘analog’ memristor-based circuits. Synaptic integration and adaptation are the core operations behind tasks such as pattern recognition and inference. Knowm Inc. is the first company in the world to bring this technology to market.

Knowm is ushering in the next phase of computing with the first general-purpose neuromemristive processor specification. Earlier this year the company announced the commercial availability of the first products in support of the kT-RAM technology stack. These include the sale of discrete memristor chips, a Back End of Line (BEOL) CMOS+memristor service, the SENSE and Application Servers and their first application named “Knowm Anomaly”, the first application built based on the theory of AHaH Computing and kT-RAM architecture. Knowm also simultaneously announced the company’s visionary developer program for organizations and individual developers. This includes the Knowm API, which serves as development hardware and training resources for co-developing the Knowm technology stack.

Knowm certainly has big ambitions. I’m a little surprised they mentioned IBM rather than HP Labs, which is where researchers first claimed to find evidence of the existence of memristors in 2008 (the story is noted in my Nanotech Mysteries wiki here). As I understand it, HP Labs is working busily (having a missed a few deadlines) on developing a commercial product using memristors.

For the curious, my latest informal roundup of memristor stories is in a May 15, 2015 posting.

Getting back to to Knowm and big ambitions, here’s Alex Nugent, Knowm CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and co-founder talking about the company and its technology,

I know something about your mummy or an ion beam microscope analyses a sarcophagus scrap

“Bearded Man, 170-180 A.D.” from the Walters Art Museum collection, object #32.6

“Bearded Man, 170-180 A.D.” from the Walters Art Museum collection, object #32.6

An Aug. 14, 2014 news item on Azonano describing this image sparks the imagination,

He looks almost Byzantine or Greek, gazing doe-eyed over the viewer’s left shoulder, his mouth forming a slight pout, like a star-struck lover or perhaps a fan of the races witnessing his favorite charioteer losing control of his horses.

In reality, he’s the “Bearded Man, 170-180 A.D.,” a Roman-Egyptian whose portrait adorned the sarcophagus sheltering his mummified remains. But the details of who he was and what he was thinking have been lost to time.

But perhaps not for much longer. A microscopic sliver of painted wood could hold the keys to unraveling the first part of this centuries-old mystery. Figuring out what kind of pigment was used (whether it was a natural matter or a synthetic pigment mixed to custom specifications), and the exact materials used to create it, could help scientists unlock his identity.

Kathleen Tuck’s Aug. 13 (?), 2014 Boise State University (Idaho, US) news release, which originated the news item, describes the nature of the research and the difficulties associated with it,

“Understanding the pigment means better understanding of the provenance of the individual” said Darryl Butt, a Boise State distinguished professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and associate director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES). “Where the pigment came from may connect it to a specific area and maybe even a family.”

For years, researchers were limited by the lack of samples large enough to be properly analyzed. But advances in the field of nanotechnology mean scientists now can work with fragments tinier than the eye can even register. Using a $1.5 million ion beam microscope at CAES, Butt — along with CAES colleagues Yaqaio Wu and Jatu Burns, and Boise State student researchers Gordon Alanko and Jennifer Watkins — is working with a sliver of the wood portrait smaller than a human hair.

The team transferred the fragment to a sample holder using a tiny deer hair called an “eyelash.” Their biggest challenge was to move it to the equipment without losing it.

So far they have extracted five needle-tip sized fragments 20 nanometers wide (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter), as well as two thin foils. From that, they have been able to analyze and map out the chemistry of the material in three dimensions.

Butt and his team are analyzing a speck of purple paint, which is significant because the blue used to blend the purple hue was a precious pigment back in the day, signaling a prominent individual.

This research is part of a larger project (from the news release),

Their data is being analyzed by researchers from the Detroit Museum of Art, where a companion to the “Bearded Man” mummy resides. It’s part of a project, titled APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings-Examination, Analysis, Research), a collaboration between 12 museums, including the British Museum in London and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

According to the news release there’s a personal aspect to Butt’s interest in this research, which may eventually have implications for Boise State University’s programmes,

“So far we’ve learned that the paint is a synthetic pigment,” said Butt, who as an artist in his own right often mixes his own pigments for his paintings. “These are very vibrant pigments, possibly heated in a lead crucible. People thought that process had been developed in the 1800s or so. This could prove it happened a lot earlier.

Butt got into solving art mysteries when he met Glenn Gates, a conservation scientist at the Walters Art Museum [Baltimore, Maryland] at a conference at Stanford University [California]. Both are officers of a new section of the American Ceramic Society — the Art, Archaeology and Conservation Science division.

“This research was a gamble that we [materials scientists] could do some really cool stuff,” Butt said, noting that he would love to branch out into analyzing pottery and other ancient artifacts.

While studying the provenance of Roman-Egyptian mummies is something new at Boise State, many researchers in the art, geology, history, anthropology and even English departments are involved in what Butt likes to call ‘reverse engineering’ of objects of cultural heritage.

“This particular problem, that is of understanding a particle of pigment from a 2,000-year-old sarcophagus, is a bit unique in that it highlights some of the amazing tools that we have at Boise State and at CAES that could shed new light on problems associated with understanding human history,” he said.

Butt hopes that these and similar transdisciplinary projects will open up external research opportunities for students, including creation of a “pipeline” of students who travel to various user facilities or museums to carry out interdisciplinary research.

“Envision, for example, art students studying works of art using synchrotron radiation and bright x-rays at a national laboratory, while science and engineering students use their technical skills to unravel mysteries of materials used by ancient societies in the field or held by museums,” he said.

The idea can sound far-fetched even for those who are participating in the research, although there is a certain, sound logic to transdisciplinary work between the arts and the sciences.

I was not able to find any reference to Butt’s art work online, find a published research paper or more information (website) featuring APPEAR ((Ancient Panel Paintings-Examination, Analysis, Research); admittedly, it was a brief search.

There are many techniques used to examine works of art and/or heritage. For a description of another technique, Raman spectroscopy, and its use in examining art pigments there’s my June 27, 2014 posting titled: Art (Lawren Harris and the Group of Seven), science (Raman spectroscopic examinations), and other collisions at the 2014 Canadian Chemistry Conference (part 2 of 4). Should you be interested in the entire series, additional links can be found in that posting.

Resistive memory from University of California Riverside (replacing flash memory in mobile devices) and Boise State University (neuron chips)

Today, (Aug. 19, 2 013)I have two items on memristors. First, Dexter Johnson provides some context for understanding why a University of California Riverside research team’s approach to creating memristors is exciting some interest in his Aug. 17, 2013 posting (Nanoclast blog on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website), Note: Links have been removed,

The heralding of the memristor, or resistive memory, and the long-anticipated demise of flash memory have both been tracking on opposite trajectories with resistive memory expected to displace flash ever since the memristor was first discovered by Stanley Williams’ group at Hewlett Packard in 2008.

The memristor has been on a rapid development track ever since and has been promised to be commercially available as early as 2014, enabling 10 times greater embedded memory for mobile devices than currently available.

The obsolescence of flash memory at the hands of the latest nanotechnology has been predicted for longer than the commercial introduction of the memristor. But just at the moment it appears it’s going to reach its limits in storage capacity along comes a new way to push its capabilities to new heights, sometimes thanks to a nanomaterial like graphene.

In addition to the graphene promise, Dexter goes on to discuss another development,  which could push memory capabilities and which is mentioned in an Aug. 14, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily (and elsewhere),

A team at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering has developed a novel way to build what many see as the next generation memory storage devices for portable electronic devices including smart phones, tablets, laptops and digital cameras.

The device is based on the principles of resistive memory [memristor], which can be used to create memory cells that are smaller, operate at a higher speed and offer more storage capacity than flash memory cells, the current industry standard. Terabytes, not gigbytes, will be the norm with resistive memory.

The key advancement in the UC Riverside research is the creation of a zinc oxide nano-island on silicon. It eliminates the need for a second element called a selector device, which is often a diode.

The Aug. 13, 2013 University of California Riverside news release by Sean Nealon, which originated the news item, further describes the limitations of flash memory and reinforces the importance of being able to eliminate a component (selector device),

Flash memory has been the standard in the electronics industry for decades. But, as flash continues to get smaller and users want higher storage capacity, it appears to reaching the end of its lifespan, Liu [Jianlin Liu, a professor of electrical engineering] said.

With that in mind, resistive memory is receiving significant attention from academia and the electronics industry because it has a simple structure, high-density integration, fast operation and long endurance.

Researchers have also found that resistive memory can be scaled down in the sub 10-nanometer scale. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.) Current flash memory devices are roughly using a feature size twice as large.

Resistive memory usually has a metal-oxide-metal structure in connection with a selector device. The UC Riverside team has demonstrated a novel alternative way by forming self-assembled zinc oxide nano-islands on silicon. Using a conductive atomic force microscope, the researchers observed three operation modes from the same device structure, essentially eliminating the need for a separate selector device.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the researchers’ published paper,

Multimode Resistive Switching in Single ZnO Nanoisland System by Jing Qi, Mario Olmedo, Jian-Guo Zheng, & Jianlin Liu. Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 2405 doi:10.1038/srep02405 Published 12 August 2013

This study is open access.

Meanwhile, Boise State University (Idaho, US) is celebrating a new project, CIF: Small: Realizing Chip-scale Bio-inspired Spiking Neural Networks with Monolithically Integrated Nano-scale Memristors, which was announced in an Aug. 17, 2013 news item on Azonano,

Electrical and computer engineering faculty Elisa Barney Smith, Kris Campbell and Vishal Saxena are joining forces on a project titled “CIF: Small: Realizing Chip-scale Bio-inspired Spiking Neural Networks with Monolithically Integrated Nano-scale Memristors.”

Team members are experts in machine learning (artificial intelligence), integrated circuit design and memristor devices. Funded by a three-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation grant, they have taken on the challenge of developing a new kind of computing architecture that works more like a brain than a traditional digital computer.

“By mimicking the brain’s billions of interconnections and pattern recognition capabilities, we may ultimately introduce a new paradigm in speed and power, and potentially enable systems that include the ability to learn, adapt and respond to their environment,” said Barney Smith, who is the principal investigator on the grant.

The Aug. 14, 2013 Boise State University news release by Kathleen Tuck, which originated the news item, describes the team’s focus on mimicking the brain’s capabilities ,

One of the first memristors was built in Campbell’s Boise State lab, which has the distinction of being one of only five or six labs worldwide that are up to the task.

The team’s research builds on recent work from scientists who have derived mathematical algorithms to explain the electrical interaction between brain synapses and neurons.

“By employing these models in combination with a new device technology that exhibits similar electrical response to the neural synapses, we will design entirely new computing chips that mimic how the brain processes information,” said Barney Smith.

Even better, these new chips will consume power at an order of magnitude lower than current computing processors, despite the fact that they match existing chips in physical dimensions. This will open the door for ultra low-power electronics intended for applications with scarce energy resources, such as in space, environmental sensors or biomedical implants.

Once the team has successfully built an artificial neural network, they will look to engage neurobiologists in parallel to what they are doing now. A proposal for that could be written in the coming year.

Barney Smith said they hope to send the first of the new neuron chips out for fabrication within weeks.

With the possibility that HP Labs will make its ‘memristor chips‘ commercially available in 2014 and neuron chips fabricated for the Boise State University researchers within weeks of this Aug. 19, 2013 date, it seems that memristors have been developed at a lightning fast pace. It’s been a fascinating process to observe.

Boise (Idaho) State University’s free podcasts on nano and more

I appreciate the self-deprecating humour in this Dec. 16, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Boise State University (BSU) recently began a campaign, Beyond The Blue, to bring deserved awareness to their excellent academic programs, (as opposed to their better know football team and blue astroturf,) and is hosting a series of fascinating podcasts spotlighting some of the interesting work happening now.

The two podcasts mentioned in the Nanowerk news item were about bionanotechnology and nanomedicine, respectively.

Dr. [Will] Hughes is an assistant professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Boise State University, as well as an affiliate faculty and research council member of the Mountain States Tumor & Medical Research Institute at St Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho.

From a biological perspective, DNA is the language for life. But what may be less widely known is DNA’s potential as a programmable building block at the nanoscale. In this podcast, Hughes discusses DNA’s potential as an engineering material for building structural scaffolds for nanoelectronic devices and biochemical tools for diagnosing disease.

The second featured podcast,

Dr. [Cheryl] Jorcyk is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of cancer progression, including breast cancer and prostate cancer.

The statistics are sobering: 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer, a devastating disease that can metastasize to the liver, lungs, brain and bone. [emphasis mine] In this podcast, Jorcyk discusses how breast cancer develops and spreads, current therapies, the challenges involved in a finding a cure, and her research program.

That statistic is misleading. Your chances of contracting breast cancer increase significantly with age. In order to get a statistic of one in eight, they have to aggregate the statistics from a range of age groups. Your chances are much lower in your 20s than they are in your 50s or 80s, in short, your chances of contracting breast cancer depend on your age.