Startup uses tiny probes to store data

A small Fremont-based startup called Nanochip Inc. has developed prototype arrays of atomic-force probes, tiny instruments used to read and write information at the molecular level. These arrays can record up to one trillion bits of data -- known as a terabit -- in a single square inch. That's the storage density that magnetic hard disk drive makers hope to achieve by 2010. It's roughly equivalent to putting the contents of 25 DVDs on a chip the size of a postage stamp.

If successful, Nanochip's technology could take the $7 billion flash memory market -- which may begin to bump up against its miniaturization limits by the close of this decade -- in an entirely new direction.

Nanochip has a joint development agreement with Ovonix, a Michigan-based company that invented phase-change media, the type of thin film used on a CD or DVD read-write disc. The material has shown durability in other uses, Mr. Knight notes, citing an Intel Corp. report that the film can withstand more than one trillion "write" and "read" cycles.