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New "PRAM" 30 Times Faster Than Flash
hairyfeet writes, "The EETimes describes the new Samsung memory, phase-change RAM, called PRAM. Samsung is dubbing it 'Perfect RAM' because it is thirty times faster than NOR flash, ten times more durable — and cheaper to produce, to boot." 512-Mbit modules should be available sometime in 2008. None of the initial coverage goes much beyond Samsung's press release. At the same time, Samsung also announced a 40-nm, 32-Gbit NAND flash device.
Also, what exactly does "three-dimensional transistor structure" mean? All major transistor structures are three-dimensional. In fact, I don't know how you could even make a useful device with photolithography that isn't three-dimensional.
It's business... they are selling something that does more for only a little more money. That makes them a tidy profit!!! That's what they develop new chips for is PROFIT. In another year or two, the prices will drop to be lower, or we will have devices so large we couldn't have afforded them at all... i.e. price of a 4GB SD card isn't going down any time soon due to complexity of manufactureing.. but the new chips may make 4GB as affordable as 1GB sooner.
The format war would take place with manufacturers and memory producers. Consumers will likely never install pram or mram into their computers just like they don't install flash now. The only time you might buy pram would be a USB flash device, and that already has the standard interface of USB. So really there's no reason consumers would ever have to choose one technology pathway or another. Manufacturers would have to choose, but they're much better prepared to switch technologies and avoid having dead-end technology (they really do this all the time when it makes economic sense).
AccountKiller
Cheaper to produce, my ass. They'll be charging an arm and a leg for this type of memory.