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Diamonds Used To Increase Density, Performance of Phase-Change Memory
Lucas123 writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have shown they can increase the density, performance and the durability of phase-change memory (PSM) by using diamonds to change the base alloy material. Instead of using the more typical method of applying heat to the alloy to change its state from amorphous to crystalline, thereby laying down bits in the material, the researchers used pressure from diamond-tipped tools. Using pressure versus heat allowed them to slow down the change in order to produce many varying states allowing more data to be stored on the alloy. 'This phase-change memory is more stable than the material used in current flash drives. It works 100 times faster and is rewritable millions of times,' said the study's lead author, Ming Xu, a doctoral student at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. 'Within about five years, it could also be used to replace hard drives in computers and give them more memory.'"
Seriously. Who didn't already suspect diamonds would increase the performance of phase change memory?
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
I noticed that all the authors are Chinese. You would almost get the impression that research (in hard sciences) in the USA has been taken over by Chinese.
The Diamond Age begins.
Great work, guys! Now, do you have a suggestion on how to put several trillion tiny diamond presses inside my SSD "within about five years"?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Hopefully the increased demand will cause a significant upturn in the number of diamond manufacturers lending wider spread knowledge of the true value (much lower than popularly believed) of diamonds.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
How many times over the years have we heard that claim? Does anyone remember "bubble memory"? Is was going to replace magnetic media. Optical drives were going to replace magnetic media. SSD were going to replace magnetic media. Now diamonds? Okay. But until then, get off my lawn.
I think this is completely untrue. AFAIK the phase-change material in rewritable optical media is one of several organic dyes, which is largely why there have been issues with rewritable media shelf life and degradation. Assuming I'm right and the author of the linked CW article got that factoid wrong, what else did he get wrong? There seems to be a logical disconnect between any technique requiring pressure from "diamond-tipped tools" to manipulate PSM and promises that it's "100 times faster" and will find its way to market "within about five years". So, what, they'll have open-faced PSM material with a nanoscale diamond "punch" that can zip around and tap the material at warp speed? Isn't the included illustration that claims to show "how the diamond-tipped tools were used to compress GST" laughably ignorant?
I'm not sure the CW article that motivated this /. submission is even an accurate restatement of the actual research. This Lucas Mearian seems to have either just made shit up or completely misinterpreted the research paper.
How does it compete with IBM's racetrack memory for speed and durability?
I vote for the latter. Slashdot is HOME of the shills!
Why is it always 5 years, when 20 are realistic and "never" is also a quite real option?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And who would ever have suspected that phase change memory required longevity that is orders of magnitude beyond the rest of the components what will allow it to be affordable?
"Within five years..." - maybe sometime within my life time
"In ten years..." - it's theoretically not unpossible.
Not to degrade research works, but let's get realistic about estimates, eh? You're scientists, you know, not Wall St. hustlers.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
'Within about five years, it could also be used to replace hard drives in computers and give them more memory.'
Oh great, now my backups will take even longer. I hope network speeds get better by then.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My balls will be made available to market in 5 years as well. Complete with diamond tipped pubes.
That does seem to render the breakthrough without virtue, at least from an economic standpoint at this time. Seriously though, history is replete with innovation that cannot stand on its own initially that later becomes indispensable. Like sticky notes.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
It must be really cheap to manufacture. Should go well with my diamond cpu/gpu.
This study brought to you by the DeBeers cartel... Where we artificially inflate the value of a diamond to $5000, when based on supply and demand, it would be worth about $85... Monopolies, or oligopolies in the form of cartels are not so good for consumers... I want to form a toilet paper cartel...
So now I'll have "blood" hard drives whose innards come from a lump of carbon, mined by wage slaves in Angola? Like I need more guilt.
:D
Plus one geek cred to anyone who knows the quote sans marks
Look at your memory. It is old, and slow, and ugly. Now look at my memory. It is new, and fast, and shiny. Look back at yours, and back to mine, and back to yours. Sadly it isn't mine, but you can buy mine sometime far in the future. Look at mine again: it is now diamonds. Anything is possible...
You understand that lab made diamonds are chemically identical, and have identical properties, to mined diamonds? And are orders of magnitude cheaper to create. Does that instantly make this viable? No. Does it mean that the fact that diamonds, which are themselves kept artificially priced high by cartels such as De Beers, will be the most cost prohibitive part of improving longevity and speed, and reducing cost in PCM? Seems unlikely to me. But who knows. Don't get caught up on the fact that it's diamond though.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It is time to ramp up porn production so that in five years there be enough to fill our new diamond hard drives.
This is a fairly standard alloy for PC memory. These are common in next gen memory--look up ovonyx, or current Samsung NOR for a similar technology. And to be fair, most people in the memory industry do think that some sort of FeRAM or ReRAM or PCRAM will be important in 5 years, as a different leg in the memory heirarchy.
In any case, the point of this research was to use diamonds to take a look at the pressure/temperature phase diagram of the alloy. There is no intent or interest in making the material with diamond. Instead, knowing that you can get performance by going to another phase (which isn't simply accessable with tuning temperatures), you can
1) Change out the layer you are growing on
2) Add a stressor layer (Si3N4 is common) and temperature cycle.
3) Do some sort of tricky flash anneal to recrystalize
4) Add a quaternary alloy to improve the phase space.
In short, there will never be diamond involved, unless there is a C stress layer (unlikely).
This is all pretty standard stuff. THe diamond portion is a side note--that is how they applied test pressures. Practical devices may come out of this based on alterations of other sorts
Lab made diamonds are cheaper to create than gem grade consumer diamonds. I'm no expert, but I thought that industrial grade diamond (e.g. tiny ones, which this would DEFINITELY USE) was really cheap by virtue of being pretty abundant.
Gem grade consumer diamonds can be created in the lab as well. Up to 25 carats has been done, if memory serves me. There are tell tale signs usually, although I won't call them differences. Those diamonds still are diamonds, but tend to fluoresce in ways that mined diamonds would only do when they are a specific color variation like blue diamonds. Also, the labs are playing ball with the mining cartels and making sure that they inscribe serial numbers on their stones, so you know it was lab created.
Long story short, if there was a need to suddenly have to produce a lot of gem quality diamonds to save the Earth or something, you wouldn't have to rely on DeBeers to mine them for you. They wouldn't necessarily be cheap, but they would be a hell of a lot less expensive than current diamond prices.
The white non-Catholic population are primarily contained in the Bible Belt. Everywhere else people generally don't care the way you look. Many of them are friendly and adopting to the Chinese culture too. I am not talking about your local chop suey place but things like the idea of Zen, the rising popularity of acupuncture and herbal medicine etc. is a sign of the times.
New Economic Perspectives
Manmade diamonds also do not have inclusions (bits of sand, or other impurities that get embedded in the crystal).
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A nerd's best friend.
Lab created diamonds (at least small ones) are not that expensive. If you need an example check for diamond (dust, but still) covered blades (for stone cutting) in your local hardware store. Artificial diamonds are used in thousands of machines for very different tasks already. So that wont be a big deal
DeBears made 34.8 carat synthetic diamond for research purposes. Its volume should be about 2 cm^3.
Industrial grade diamond is pretty common. You find it in diamond saws, knife sharpeners, some sandpapers (usually aluminum oxides are used here though), and even jewelry! Yes, depending on how the market is going, you can find some pretty crappy diamonds in jewelry. Moissanite can be substituted for diamond in the case where it is used to focus lasers and such, but for pressure experiments (like diamond anvils) there is no substitute.
I read /. uncensored for the trolls and such. Usually there's some larfs
Perhaps, not today.
Same here. This may be the lamest troll thread I've ever seen on /.
And like a DDOS it's still ongoing right now, in many if not all new submissions. This freak has serious issues. Other sites have been poisoned earlier, like answers.yahoo.com (google "gamemakerdom").
It may be worse than I thought. Our last few stories seem suspicious. I think perhaps slashdot has been at least partially compromised. Hopefully the new management notices soon....... *waits impatiently*
I hope you have large lungs and efficient oxygen uptake. I don't. I can see writing on the wall, and this ain't Facebook. The fact that it's gone on for many days now in spite of people modding and flagging tells me that the staff is asleep at the wheel or has another agenda. A captain asleep at the wheel means the ship will run aground or hit an iceberg. I'm abandoning ship before that happens.