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Motorola Mocks-up MRAM

Posted by michael on from the RAM-tastic dept.

zakath writes "EETimes.com has an article on Motorola's successful presentation of 256-kilobit MRAM at ISSCC this week (Instant-on PCs anyone?). While they're still far from commercial production (2004 is their target) its nice to see some progress being made. Please tell me RAMBUS has no patents for this tech..."

4 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. They aren't going for capacity yet by toastyman · · Score: 5

    I see a lot of posters here saying that "If they double their capacity every x months, that's only 8MB in 4 years" or something...

    When working on a new technology, having a 256kbit chip is just as useful as a 256mbit chip, when all you're doing is proving the technology out. They have no reason to be trying to produce massive dies yet, because all that will do is reduce their yields... and when they're making one-off runs of these to test them, that's a killer.

    I'm certain that by the time they go into production, the capacity will be impressive.

  2. Re:256 KB?! by msobkow · · Score: 3
    The 256 kbit MRAM is already already using 16 chips, near as I could tell from the article, so the post about putting 16 of them on a memory stick is incorrect.

    However, I don't think one would need to save the entire state of system memory for this to be useful. Aside from embedded systems, consider the possibility of an OS that uses a proper swap system and just makes sure the entire physical memory is written to swap when the system suspends. If the MRAM is sufficient to keep the core kernel state and information about the swap pages, your restart would just need to flag all the physical memory as free pages, with everything currently swapped out. Sure it wouldn't be "instant on", but it would be far closer than I've seen to date.

    On the flip side, you could probably do something similar with Linux by putting in a boot patch that checks the swap space for a signature indicating it should reload the memory from the swap space instead of going through a full boot process. You'd still have the usual issues of needing to reset hardware, but it would probably be faster than a full boot.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  3. Re:This is just a test by GigsVT · · Score: 3
    Considering the advantages and the capabilities of MRAM (it can hold plenty, it's solid state, it's non-volatile, and it's mucho fast)

    Solid state, eh? I can FINALLY get rid of that vacuum tube ram... man my power bill will go so far down.
    -

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  4. Virii and instant-on by tykals · · Score: 3
    Instant-on technologies only worsen the viritic situation. Storing a virus on the harddrive is hardly a problem, as the bootsector is too small for a sizable virus, and Operating Systems vary widely. However, all the virus has to do is find any code that exists in memory and plop itself right in there. It's technically much easier, and every boot, the virus is still there, just as potent. Instant-on memory is like a big bootsector just waiting for abuse.

    Now, if you use a decent OS, like Windows, the kernel can have suitable protection mechanisms, such as security through obscurity. In Linux, a virus knows exactly where to put itself, but in Windows, the kernel is like a maze of twisty little functions, all alike. As you can see, if you're gonna use instant-on technology, you should use a suitable OS.