Samsung Creates Bendable Graphene Based Storage Chips

Better, faster, malleable — all thanks to Graphene!

Bendable devices have been long time coming — with brands like Samsung, LG, Microsoft and even a little known brand, Moxi, rumoured to be readying various forms of smartphones and wearables.

Each of these brands obviously estimate that the Next Big Thing is going to be a device that can be folded or bent, to offer more utility and durability.

Now, some recent news on the matter is fanning the flames of the rumours some more. The rumour mill has it that Samsung has now developed technology to create a graphene-based storage chip.
This is an important milestone — because for a device to bend, all of it’s internals must support such adventure. Hence, each of these “internals” must be developed with that new personality in mind. And that will call for some innovative approaches and materials.

Most of us tend to think of memory as an abstract thing in most cases, not realizing that for the software on the phone to run, there needs to be a hardware component to enable the memory on which the software would run.

The current devices use what is called the flash memory, which is not made up of flexible material, and thus would not be well accommodated in a bendable device. Graphene is a flexible material and can bend as the phone bends, which makes this development key to the development of the impending bendable smartphones.

One of the most promising materials that will assist flexibility is graphene. We’d written an absolutely brilliant article explaining what graphene is, and I highly recommend you read it to fully grasp the concept.

Graphene being a strong conductor of electricity and given its bendable and flexible attributes, it is most likely to feature in the coming revolution of smartphones.

A Graphene based bendable memory chip not only provides the necessary flexibility, it also frees up some critical space for the manufacturer.
Given that its length is a mere 50 nanometers and its thickness is 8 nanometers, the chip will provide Samsung with a little bit more space to work with, and to shoehorn more battery or additional hardware.

But that’s not all! This hybrid oxide-titanium oxide memory chip only requires 5 nanoseconds to boot, write and read data. As smartphones use electricity to synthesize its processes, the graphene-based memory is ideally suited for them.

Given that Samsung has already made a strong investment in Graphene and has even been granted a patent for it, the previously-agreed partnership between Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and Sungkyunkwan University is likely to bear fruit soon.

We can thus safely assume that Samsung plans to utilise this technology somewhere, sometime soon. If reports are to be given any cognisance then it is most likely that Samsung would release its first smartphone with a bendable display is 2019. Speculations have already been hinting that the smartphone is to be called Galaxy X and will most likely feature a flexible OLED display.

If this move is successful, it is bound to bring bendable devices closer to reality which might serve to be a breath of fresh air in the current market.

Meanwhile, back to our very straight and stiff devices for now! We’re crossing our fingers and hoping for Samsung’s bendable smartphones to soon be a reality!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.