By applying an extra-strong charge to the storage capacition of a dynamic random-access memory, Internation Business Machines Crop. has managed to pack a record-high 512-K into a 7.96-by-8.6-mm chip developed at its semiconductor facility in Essex Junction, Vt. In the experimental chip, a 5-v pulse is applied across the capacitor plates of cells out of which information is being read. The pulse pushes additional charge out of the cells, about doubling the readout signal. Doubled signal strength makes it possible to shrink the RAM chip in two ways, without increasing its vulnerability to soft erors: the memory cells can have smaller capacitors-node capacitance is a scant 48 fF and the bit lines can handle more cells (128 per bit line for the experimental chip), reducing the number of sense amplifiers. IBM researchers described the 128-by-4-bit chip, whose access time is 120 ns, at last week's Hawaii Symposium on VLSI Technology (see p.103)