Slashdot Mirror

I found this paper.

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html

It sounds like the chalcogenide is deposited as a thin film. Mind you they talk about transistors, so it must be an extra processing stage on a normal chip.

This seems to confirm it
http://www.eetimes.com/in_focus/silicon_engineerin g/OEG20030919S0044
Chalcogenide RAM is nonvolatile, boasts access speed comparable to that of DRAM and possesses advantages in scalability, high sensing margin, low energy consumption and endurance to cycling. The structure and processing of chalcogenide memory are much simpler than in other next-generation memories such as MRAM and ferroelectric RAM. In a chalcogenide memory cell, the data is stored in a flat chalcogenide layer that can be deposited near the end of the CMOS interconnect process. Therefore, disturbance of the CMOS process is minimal, making it ideal for systems-on-chip.

So I guess they add an extra step to the end of the process and deposit a layer of chalcogenide glass.

These things sound really cool BTW, they're writable at a byte granularity in tens of nanoseconds just like a regular SDRAM, but they are non volatile. It looks like they can flip bits individually either way too.

Whereas flash memory is much slower - tens of microseconds per byte, and you need to erase 16K-128Kbyte block at a time. And PRAM is supposed to be denser and allow unlimited erase cycles.

Plus Intel is backing it so it's not like it will fail because the vendor can't afford to scale the production process to make chips with a high capacity.

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html Read up on the technology. Flash is limited by write/read cycles. This technology uses pre-existing fabrication techniques. It doesn't deviate much at all from the standard CMOS design. It's less power-hungry, still non-volatile, and can be used in ANY current flash-based device (as you can easily pin-out it to any particular flavor card's spec)

heat exchange is how the entire design works, by applying heat to change the structure from crystalline to amorphous and back to read as 1's and 0's. Heat is a necessary factor in this, sadly. But, it is still non-volatile, and it's the same material used in re-writable optical discs, it's not as fast as a hard drive but there's no chance of mechanical failure. This technology looks very promising, and if it comes thru, it'll kick Flash's ass to hell and back.

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html Link to the tech paper Oxonyx has concerning the technology and their take on the future uses.

Look it up. It's also known as Phase-Change memory. The same Chalcogenide (sp?) glass used in rewritable optical discs can be manufactured in MUCH higher densities than standard silicon, and instead of using light, we can use electricity to transform the glass from amorphous to crystalline, and back, at rapid speeds, with on the order of 10 trillion read/write cycles, compared to current Flash RAM, which is on the order of only a few hundred thousand read/write cycles. In that way, it's very comparable to current DRAM. This technology MAY even replace SRAM beforehand since it will theoretically take up a much, MUCH smaller area which made DRAM unlikely to be used as processor cache memory.

Read about it here... http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html

Ever hear of Ovonic Unified Memory? http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html With this technology, silicon may be put into it's place for memory purposes. Bye, Flash. My only question is, could this be used for processors, given the statement in this link "OUM offers a way to realize full system-on-a-chip capability through integrating unified memory, linear, and logic on the same silicon chip." ? Do you think this would be a better way to go with processor cache, higher densities, less heat, and semi-equivalent access speeds?

Page 35 of their downloadable pdf shows that each cell can hold multiple bits. Each cell can be set to one of ten states by multiple pulses of current, so comparisons to binary storage don't work. The manufacturing process is not complex, basic CMOS in about 20 stages, but the part of the cell that stores data is only about 20 nanometers wide. Replacement of hard drives is a very trivial application. IBM and Intel are planning to incorporate this tech inside ICs to reduce latency of fetching data. The big news is more highly integrated systems on chip. It doesn't look pie-in-the-sky, somewhere-way-down-the-road to me.

From the company developing it - Ovonyx:

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html

http://www.ovonyx.com/ovonyxtech.html

From the company developing it - Ovonyx:

http://www.ovonyx.com/tech_html.html

http://www.ovonyx.com/ovonyxtech.html

While the whole thing is a little more complicated. Ovshinsky was the first one to get patent on this area, and he opened a company named Ovonics. Then Ovonics created a company named Ovonyx with a cofounder of Micron. Ovonyx is focused on the Phase Change RAM while Ovonics keeps working on things like Fuel cell, Solar cell, batteries...

Gordon Moore of Intel was also one of the early researchers on the area of Phasse Change RAM. In 2000, Intel invested some big money into Ovonyx and get the license of Phase Change RAM from Ovonyx. Samsung licensed the Phase Change RAM from Ovonyx later.

Let's not confuse NOR and NAND flash. This is targeted at taking NOR sockets in mobile phones where Intel's multi-level cell NOR flash is the leader and prices are much higher than NAND. Unfortunately, the article doesn't get into the technical details. Many companies have been researching phase-change memories for years. Interestingly enough, Samsung had announced earlier a joint effort with Ovonyx, whom Intel has been working with for years.

I think that we are close to seeing why Apple *really* switched to Intel. Put on your tin foil hat because I'm about to take you for a conspiracy theory ride:

1) Intel have been working with Ovonyx since 2000 on a technology called phase change memory (or PRAM, for short). Basically, PRAM uses chalcogenide - the same material used in rewriteable optical media - in a solid state RAM, only it is manipulated electrically, instead of optically. This gives the RAM nonvolatility and random accessibility. It is several orders of magnatude faster than flash (nearly as fast as DRAM) and has a write cycle endurance of 10^12 demonstrated as of about 4 years ago.

2) Intel patent applications have led me to believe that they have made great strides in the technology, while remaining very tight lipped. Here's some insight. Note that they are discussing the displacement of SRAM, DRAM and flash with this technology. Noteworthy, is the following:

[0058] Turning to FIG. 5, a portion of a system 500 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention is described. System 500 may be used in wireless devices such as, for example, a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop or portable computer with wireless capability, a web tablet, a wireless telephone, a pager, an instant messaging device, a digital music player, a digital camera, or other devices that may be adapted to transmit and/or receive information wirelessly. System 500 may be used in any of the following systems: a wireless local area network (WLAN) system, a wireless personal area network (WPAN) system, or a cellular network, although the scope of the present invention is not limited in this respect.

Now, here's where it all begins:

Envision, if you will, a high-speed, nonvolatile memory with very low power consumption. This enables the following:

1) Intel Robson Technology. This would answer the question of durability. Why would Intel demo such a technology if flash memory would wear out in short order? With PRAM, you've got CMOS compatibility so you can throw the whole deal right into the processor.

2) Ultra-low power wireless devices. Add Intel's Wireless USB and you've got the perfect medium to talk to your iPod. In addition, your gonna end up using it for more than just an iPod. Store your entire "desktop" on the damn thing, add some authentication mechanisms and you can use any wireless USB equipped PC to log into your "wireless personal server".

There's more, but this should be good for now.

...just in time for the Apple switch to Intel products?

There is something curious in the Apple deal and it is big.

Apple emphasized that they believed Intel's processor roadmap to be more impressive than any alternative. Now, Intel's current chips use boat loads of power because they haven't entered into a silicon-on-insulator deal with IBM, who owns the patent. AMD uses silicon-on-insulator to get their power consumption numbers wayy down relative to Intel's numbers.

Without getting into the details on why Intel doesn't have silicon-on-insulator (IBM wants to "trade" instead of license...), one would think that AMD would have been a *much* better choice for Apple. But Apple's emphasis on the future processors leads me to believe that Intel has something *big* up their sleeve. Probably something to compete with the Cell processor, but on a much broader scale (i.e. - not focused so much on gaming performance).

I know that Intel have been developing Ovonyx memory technology for some time now (since 2000). It is interesting to note that in the process of developing the memory, they found that it has nonbinary processing capabilities.

Is Intel going to drop a bomb?

Won't more ram eventually become unnecessary with all the bottlenecks computers have?

No... err... rather, something will fundamentally change.

Instead of having a hierarchy of memory (hard drive, ram, cache, etc), you'll see RAM and flash merge into a "universal memory". Everything will come on a single chip - processor and storage. RAM won't be required since the on board storage will be both quick and nonvolatile.

Currently, as much as 75 percent of a processor's area is used for cache memory. This is a number that is increasing, too. This is because RAM is too electrically "distant" from the main processor to be of any high-performance use. The near-term solution has been to pile on lots of cache memory in order to make up for it.

Recently, Ovonyx licensed their phase-change technology to Nanochip. Now, the phase-change technology is the same thing that is currently used in CD/DVD-RWs. With this implementation, they'll be programming and reading the material electronically instead of optically. Since they'll be doing it with MEMS and atomic probes, the density will reach levels of 1 terabit/square inch (125 gigabytes) and will do so very quickly. For more information, see HP's probe storage page. As a side note, HP and Nanochip are just a couple miles apart so it is rumored that Nanochip is hiding the HP plan at this point. Commercialization in 2006 isn't too far off. Also note that Microsoft is an investor in Nanochip as well. Bill Gates mentioned at Cebit that terabit chips will be here "very soon". Something to think about.

-Intel (and ST to a minor factor) are the only companies investing into this, all competitors have different technologies.

Not true - Lockheed Martin is also a developer. I should also note that there are many private developers that won't ever need a license if they ultimately can't create a working/profitable device.

-A demonstration of reliable high density operation has still to follow. Handling local temperature differences of several hundrend kelvins within a sold state device poses many problems. Thermal stress will contribute to wear out, characteristics drift etc etc..

Intel has already demonstrated a cycle life of 10^12 and expects data retention of 10 years at 120dC.

-How about process compatibility.. no mention about this, yet

Google for this. Intel is throwing the weight of their R&D to OUM because it is so process-friendly. They are currently running OUM alongside the Pentium 3.0Ghz line (not commercially viable / internal R&D use only).

A brief here...

Ovonyx non-volatile memory technology offers significantly faster write and erase speeds and higher cycling endurance than conventional Flash memory. It also has the advantage of a simple fabrication process, which allows the design of semiconductor chips with embedded non-volatile memory using only a few additional mask steps.

Interesting comments from the horse's mouth.

-Intel is also investing in competing technologies

Yes - but they are on record (see original EBN link from parent post) stating that OUM shows the most promise. But, as I did state earlier, I see this as extremely speculative. I would not be here if I was not a whore for the technology. I fully expect to do one of two things with my investment:

1) 100 fold return by 2010
2) lose it all

That is what speculation is all about.

The problem they have solved "Using electron beam lithography to remove misaligned clusters" is not a viable production solution.

Electron beam epitaxy has been around for years promising very fine detail etching, but unless something wonderful has happened in the last couple of years its still a lab-only technique, or one that can be used for one-off wafer runs.

Personally I'd put my money with (Ovonyx - see also Ovonics the parent company) who've been working with Intel for at least two years to productionize their technology - also offering non-volatile, nano-second read/write access and potentially high density memories.

Replace the SDRAM on these puppies with the NVORAM being developed by Ovonyx Technologies, as described in this Slashdot article from 5/24. That would solve the volatility problem and (IMHO) the problem of having to buy 8Gb of high-performance DIMMs.Granted, I'd rather see the tech using a standard HDD interface (SCSI, IDE, DMA/66, etc.) than being available only for swapfile.

I would think that no matter how fast of a phase change they can manage, they're still going to have a lot of delay doing the blanking.

But they don't use the same technology (laser) as in CD-RW/DVD-RAM optical disks but a transistor for every single data bit. That would mean that they do not need to blank the entire ram (or entire blocks of it) to reuse it.

Or did i miss something in the technical description of the OUM, where they also mention that every single bit can be uniquely addressed for read and write?

As soon as I heard the name "Ovonyx" I was reminded of Stanford Ovshinsky, a physicist who claimed to revolutionize amorphous silicon technology, reportedly 'inventing' a field of Materials Science called "ovonics". He was a minor hero to me as a teenager (the 70's). I'm not such a fan now.

Though I can hardly blame /. for not checking further, I think readers might want to.

Sure enough, on the "About the Corporation" page, it confirms: "The Corporation Ovonyx, Inc. (Ovonyx) was formed in 1999 as a joint venture between Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD) and Messrs. Tyler Lowrey and Ward Parkinson. ECD is Ovshinsky's company (founded in 1960). Surprisingly, no link or further information is provided on ECD, which according to the Ovonyx Corporate page "has been actively pursuing phase-change material and device structure development,optimization and characterization for many applications - but principally for optical and electrical memories."

From what I recall from the 70's/80's, ECD wasn't 'focused' in these areas, but on solar panels (hence the name "Energy Conversion Devices"). This may explain why "ECD's contribution to the Ovonyx joint venture was all of its intellectual property (IP) in this area" [optical and electrical memory]. Perhaps ECD didn't feel it could make use of this IP, and turned it over to two former top Micron Technology (chip) execs. Read on for details

THE BACKGROUND
Ovshinsky was a darling of the Japanese in the 70's/80's when Americans were in shock because the Japanese were using American findings like the management theories of Edwards Deming (who was revered like a god in Japan), 'process control', and "just in time" to turn out cars that the US auto giants couldn't match. American business was also awash in culture shock from dealing with the Japanese business systems (kureitsu, etc.) as equals and as a potential market.

Ovshinsky raised money by chiding US corps that they would miss the Next Big Thing if they didn't invest in his work, but his primary business relationships were with the Japanese.

The PBS show NOVA even did a one hour documentary on him ("Japan's American Genius" 10/27/87) that seemed to promise that cheap high efficiency amorphous solar cells would be around any day now. I've kept my eyes peeled ever since (I instantly made the Ovonyx connection in 5/2000!), and never heard anything about ECD. The advances in amorphous technology always seemed to come from elsewhere.

I haven't been impressed by ECD's ability to bring *any* product to market in 40 years, and I don't know of any breakthroughs they have made or licensed -- and all their 'background' and 'product' links seem to point to nonexistent documents in a 'drafts' folder. However, I may be wrong, or perhaps the documents are being updated, so I refer you to ECD's home page, which is (perhaps unsurprisingly, considering Ovshinsky supposedly pioneered 'ovonics') http://www.ovonic.com not to be confused with the OVONYX site in the /. article

Perhaps I am a little jaded, because I was once a big fan of Ovshinsky (as he was presented), but what I've read in the OVONIX and ECD (OVONIC)web sites seems to have an unusual, almost Microsoftian degree of 'spin'. Caveat emptor.

However, if anyone out there knows of some concrete product or technical advance that proceeded directly from ECD or Ovshinsky, I would be *most* happy to hear about it. You have to reclaim those childhood heroes when you can! It's good for the soul.

_____________

As soon as I heard the name "Ovonyx" I was reminded of Stanford Ovshinsky, a physicist who claimed to revolutionize amorphous silicon technology, reportedly 'inventing' a field of Materials Science called "ovonics". He was a minor hero to me as a teenager (the 70's). I'm not such a fan now.

Though I can hardly blame /. for not checking further, I think readers might want to.

Sure enough, on the "About the Corporation" page, it confirms: "The Corporation Ovonyx, Inc. (Ovonyx) was formed in 1999 as a joint venture between Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD) and Messrs. Tyler Lowrey and Ward Parkinson. ECD is Ovshinsky's company (founded in 1960). Surprisingly, no link or further information is provided on ECD, which according to the Ovonyx Corporate page "has been actively pursuing phase-change material and device structure development,optimization and characterization for many applications - but principally for optical and electrical memories."

From what I recall from the 70's/80's, ECD wasn't 'focused' in these areas, but on solar panels (hence the name "Energy Conversion Devices"). This may explain why "ECD's contribution to the Ovonyx joint venture was all of its intellectual property (IP) in this area" [optical and electrical memory]. Perhaps ECD didn't feel it could make use of this IP, and turned it over to two former top Micron Technology (chip) execs. Read on for details

THE BACKGROUND
Ovshinsky was a darling of the Japanese in the 70's/80's when Americans were in shock because the Japanese were using American findings like the management theories of Edwards Deming (who was revered like a god in Japan), 'process control', and "just in time" to turn out cars that the US auto giants couldn't match. American business was also awash in culture shock from dealing with the Japanese business systems (kureitsu, etc.) as equals and as a potential market.

Ovshinsky raised money by chiding US corps that they would miss the Next Big Thing if they didn't invest in his work, but his primary business relationships were with the Japanese.

The PBS show NOVA even did a one hour documentary on him ("Japan's American Genius" 10/27/87) that seemed to promise that cheap high efficiency amorphous solar cells would be around any day now. I've kept my eyes peeled ever since (I instantly made the Ovonyx connection in 5/2000!), and never heard anything about ECD. The advances in amorphous technology always seemed to come from elsewhere.

I haven't been impressed by ECD's ability to bring *any* product to market in 40 years, and I don't know of any breakthroughs they have made or licensed -- and all their 'background' and 'product' links seem to point to nonexistent documents in a 'drafts' folder. However, I may be wrong, or perhaps the documents are being updated, so I refer you to ECD's home page, which is (perhaps unsurprisingly, considering Ovshinsky supposedly pioneered 'ovonics') http://www.ovonic.com not to be confused with the OVONYX site in the /. article

Perhaps I am a little jaded, because I was once a big fan of Ovshinsky (as he was presented), but what I've read in the OVONIX and ECD (OVONIC)web sites seems to have an unusual, almost Microsoftian degree of 'spin'. Caveat emptor.

However, if anyone out there knows of some concrete product or technical advance that proceeded directly from ECD or Ovshinsky, I would be *most* happy to hear about it. You have to reclaim those childhood heroes when you can! It's good for the soul.

_____________

Thier news page shows they have deals and investment from Intel.

Very cool stuff, especially for laptops. You could selectively power RAM to save a few watts here or there. The only problem I see with a system with nothing but non-volitile RAM is filling the cache inside the processor. Easy to fix I'm sure, but if the cache was non-volitile too, you'd have the entire machine state saved.

Intel got in early - I'm sure Transmeta would be terribly interested in RAM that you can take power away from, and have it maintain state...