A team of British and Japanese clever chip coders, known as “the batter boys” have made a “breakthrough in semiconductor memory technology” that would allow the creation of a thumbnail-sized chip so powerful that it could replace storage devices such as hard disk drives.  

The chip opens new possibilities for lightweight devices such as computers, mobile phones and entertainment systems, and, if successful, could put Hitachi into the spotlight as a leading chipmaker ... “you want some vinegar on those mate” ... The chip could represent a turning point for the industry, as it promises to overcome the physics that currently slow down the development of more powerful chips.  

The breakthrough is one of many as the team of silicon scientists work to develop a single electron chip that can store one thousand billion bits of data. The fastest RAM chips currently can store only up to 246 million bits of data.