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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
The Diamond Age begins.
Discounting the fact that simply because the researchers are not named "John" and "Sally" they must not be American... Contemporary American society does not value education in general and have no respect for science, engineering and R&D. Accordingly we are producing less scientists and engineers. We are investing less into long term R&D on both the public and private sector which further depresses the draw of talent into the fields.
So, I would expect this trend to continue until businesses can stop looking at the next quarter and start looking 10-20+ years down the road. The federal government on the other hand needs to realize that funding blue sky research brings us things like the Internet and we could use more of that too...
In closing we are pretty much hosed as long as we value reality tv, athletics and wealth more than discovery, knowledge and the common good.
Good luck!
- anon
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?
US is not immigration friendly, not even relatively:
http://usvisa-info.com/en-MX/selfservice/us_immigrant_visas
Most Chinese students are actually on student visas. They usually get a 1yr extension for work, and from there they go to H1B if hired somewhere, and Green Card if they really want to stay, but that costs a lot to a company so it must be really worth it.
The question is, do most of the Chinese students stay in the US? or do they go back to China and work there?
If this means something: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/28/china-us-publisher-scientific-papers , I don't think most are staying.
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.
Why would you want to stay in a country that is fairly hostile to the way you look, has a very different culture and set of basic values and generally tends to villify your culture and homeland?
US used to be a place where migrants could actually feel welcome but those times are firmly in the past.
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
The U.S. population is about 13% foreign-born, which is pretty high. Lower than Canada (19%), but higher than most other countries. For example, only 9% of the UK population is foreign-born, 4% of the Italian population, 2% of the Japanese population, and... 0.3% of the Chinese population.
It's not necessarily actually easy to get into the U.S., but overall, a lot of people do so anyway. And unlike many other countries, the U.S. has automatic citizenship from birth, which means any offspring of the foreign-born population (a full 1/8 of the country!) are automatically citizens, which is a much friendlier path to citizenship than most countries have.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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.
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
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.
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!