Slashdot Mirror
64 Mbyte Write once CMOS Chip from Standard Fabs
brian wang writes "Matrix semiconductor has taped out 64 Mbyte write once chip. It is 8 layer memory that can be made at standard fabs. They will be made at Taiwan Semiconductor initially in a 0.25micron process.
It will be compatible with Flash.
Obviously when they move to 0.18 micron and 0.13 and 0.10 micron processes that already are producing chips the memory size will shoot up to rival CDRoms from single chips. Revolutionary impact for handhelds, PCs, ROMDrives etc..."
See, I knew it: Little is better.
I'm not too much of a hardware guy, but I do know that the BIOS of a computer are made of CMOS. I also know that they're extremely small. Would this have any impact on instant boot projects like LinuxBIOS? With 64MB you could fit pretty much the entire boot procedure. That would be sweet.
If the technology is there, people will want to carry (DVD-quality) movies around (without a "huge" DVD..). Once we're there, people will want to carry many of them. And then 3D-movies.. and after that I'm sure someone will come up with something even bigger.
"Using a 3-D fabrication method that deposits layers of circuits with a modified CMOS process, the technique can yield nine to 10 times the amount of chips per a given wafer, providing a cost advantage over traditional flash memory, according to Matrix..."
So we could see a CDROM-capacity write-once "consumable memory" chip that was the same size as a 64MB chip now. Nice, but the article later says:
"The company said it sees no limit to the number of layers that could be added to a device."
How does that jive with the earlier stated scalability of 9-10x?
"'If they can really do this and produce working devices, it is very hot,' said Richard Wawrzyniak, an analyst at Semico Research (Phoenix)."
Oh, so heat is the limiting factor! <g> Seriously, though, I agree with his assessment—having the devices actually work would greatly contribute to their coolness factor.
To creating real Write-only memory.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
In ten years, if I can have a 1-cm resolution 3D map of my city, which will overlay on my HUD-equipped Oakleys and provide interactivity with any object in my visual environment, and that database requires a 500GB solid state 3D-memory device, then that's what I'm going to want. Learn from history: If you build it, the applications will come.
I once heard a story (may be an urban legend—anybody have good data?) that Bill Gates once visited Intel's offices and that while he and Andy Grove strolled about the facility, Grove mentioned that it was difficult to imagine a widespread consumer market for the blazingly fast CPUs on the far right of Intel's roadmap. According to the story, Gates replied with something like, "Don't worry; continue to develop and market faster chips, and we will continue to develop and market innovative and compelling software that will bring it to its knees." I'd wager that the same goes for memory technology.
Perhaps in the future your processor will be the size and shape of a die or cube of cheese.
Why should we care about this?
:)
- Write Once Memory: CD-ROM is 10x larger, and is very cheap. DVD-ROM will eventually be about 100x larger.
- Solid-state storage for Digital Cameras: Write-Many memory chips are readily available. They are expensive, but reusable. Will this write-once chip be cheap enough to make it worth while? Or are these chips much smaller, making this interesting to travelers?
- Computer Memory: Obviously not useful there (I don't see a market ofr single-use computers
Is there other info about this memory, showing why this is of any use?
ShoutingMan.com
Well, I have 140Gb of storage for MP3s. I'd like to be able to carry that around, for a start. No more media for my walkman - just everything already in it.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Behold, the power of Cheesium 886.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
"See, I knew it: Little is better."
Which girls have you been arguing this with, anyway?
what's the point if I can only write once?
Tell him what some uses are, Johnny!
unless they really make the modules so cheap they're practically giving them away
I believe that's what they're envisioning. From the article..."The company envisions its chips being cheap enough to be sold in multipacks at grocery checkout counters". Wow, an 8 pack of 64 meg memory modules for the same price as a pack of batteries? Even one for the same price as a pack of batteries would be worth the cost.
I formally declare this a good thing. But don't take my word for it, read the article yourself.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Notables:
My deviantArt site
Well, it depends. On a multisession CDROM you can add data until there's space on it. A translating layer in the middle could present the data in the new session as an overlay over the data in the previous sessions, thus giving you a "write few times - read many times" storage media, even if a given area can be written only once. This indeed is what is done at least for the table of contents of a multisession CDROM.
Since CDROMs have slow access time, this is pratical only for the TOC, which is read only few times, but for these chips that would be a non-issue, and assuming you don't have to write 64MB (or whatever size they'll be) at once on them, you could effectively "update" the data on them.
Incidentally, access to earlier versions of the data would be easy: one would just have to consider all the sessions but the last N ones...
Does it still sound weird to use them for storing firmware?
You can just walk up and touch the things you know...
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!