National Scientific Corp. has won a U.S. patent for a new "TunnelMOS" memory design which it says is faster, cheaper, and requires less power than conventional CMOS static RAMs. Though the manufacturing process is more complex and therefore more expensive than CMOS SRAMs per square unit of measurement, costs are saved because of denser and therefore smaller cell size. According to National Scientific, which licenses design technologies to chip makers, TunnelMOS memory is fully compatible with existing CMOS process technology.

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